Naruto: The Kage Chronicles
by Tanneal
Summary: Instead of returning to Konoha after getting injured in the retrieval mission, Naruto was taken by the Akatsuki. He trained and lived with them for four years. Now they want him to do somethings for them. Caution: Darker, stronger, and more mature Naruto.
1. Prologue

**Prologue:**

Itachi Uchiha was jumping from tree to tree at a leisurely pace. Even if he was going slower he would still be faster than a number of ninjas just because of the fact that he was that good. His thoughts were dominated by the jinchuuriki who was lying at the brink of death because of his foolish brother and his ridiculous way of gaining power. If Sasuke had followed a ninja who actually had a semblance of honor, or was actually strong he would understand. But falling for the trap of a snake? It was so…stupid and naïve, not to mention that the man had no compassion for another human being and was simply a mere shell of his former self. Once he had proposed the same deal to Itachi, he remembered the day quite clearly, and now had Sasuke as a consolation prize. "Well, I don't have time to worry about my foolish brother right now," he muttered as the huge statues of the valley of end came into the longer range of his Sharingan. "Kisame, stay behind the water fall, I don't want any unwanted eyes catching a glimpse of you, it could put the whole base in the risk of getting discovered," ordered Itachi as he took the lead and Kisame slowed down to better hide his presence.

When the older Uchiha finally reached the little valley with the famous waterfall rumored to be created by Hashirama Senju himself, because of his Mokuton abilities. He quickly scanned the perimeter and checked the whole area for any source of a chakra signature, and found none other than the faint one that he was looking for. With a hand signal he motioned for Kisame that it was safe and a black blur crossed the valley and was hidden safely behind the water fall before Itachi decided to land and check on the injured Jinchuuriki. As he neared the small body of a blonde boy, he could tell that the boy was in grave peril. A lot of blood had already flowed out of his body and the orange chakra of the fox was slowly receding back into his belly, it had almost run out a ninth of its chakra capacity. A full tail's worth, that was as much Chakra as Naruto had been able to call out. The visibly large hole in his chest was still oozing blood, but there wasn't much blood left and if had had to save the boy he would have to do something and be fast about it. Itachi knelt down and pulled out a rather large first-aid box from the folds of his Akatsuki cloak and laid it open next to the boy's body. Carefully he stripped the boy down so that his upper body was completely bare and started working diligently on the wound. After about twenty minutes, he had stitched it up to the best of his abilities, and thankfully the bleeding had stopped. Then had had taken out an anti-septic gel and rubbed a gracious amount on the wound before wrapping and bandaging it up thoroughly.

After giving another quick scan to his surroundings, he motioned for Kisame to come out and join him. Kisame emerged from the waterfall and stood next to his ever stoic partner. "Are you done? Can he travel or should we summon Zetsu to teleport him back to Ame?" even though Itachi did not show it on his features, Kisame knew him well enough to realize that he already cared for this injured gaki. And thinking about what Konoha had put him through, Kisame couldn't help but feel a tinge of pity for him as well.

"It will be too risky to call Zetsu here; his travel through the ground will leave enough furrows for them to follow us all the way to headquarters. We are going to carry him but first I want you to dispose his clothes off so that they lose his scent. It would not do to have Inuzuka scouts showing up in Ame. Understood?" Itachi was serious about taking the boy and that meant no amount of argument on this issue would persuade him to choose otherwise. Kisame nodded and took off the rest of Naruto's clothes off and put him in an extra Akatsuki robe that he had, which was six sizes too large on the boy. Then he summoned his sharks and fed his blood soaked clothes to them. Itachi thought it was a little gross but it had to be done as they did not have a better way to throw Konoha off their tail.

"Let's go," and off they went back towards Amegakure.

_THREE DAYS LATER IN AMEGAKURE_

Naruto stirred from his long slumber as he became aware of his surroundings, and they were not the ones had had been expecting. As his latest memories flooded back in his mind, he thought that he would be back in the valley, or maybe his apartment, or even the hospital but not a damp dingy dark room that had windows high in the wall and were so tiny that it would be hard to even stick his head out of them if he wanted to. As he became more aware of his surroundings, his survival instincts kicked in and he jumped out of the cot and thought of pulling out a kunai…only he had no kunai pouch. When he looked down he realized he was wearing a huge black robe with red clouds. Suddenly his mind flashed back to the moment where the two strangers had attacked him in the hotel room when he was with Jiraiya. They were wearing robes that were exactly the same as the one he was wearing. This could only mean one thing they had managed to finally capture him.

Suddenly the door to his room creaked open and a very kind looking woman was standing there. She had dark blue hair with a light blue rose on it. She had a piercing right below her lower lip and her eyelids were lined with what appeared to be purple eye liner though he was suspicious that it was something else entirely. She was also wearing the standard Akatsuki robe and her black leggings were visible where the robe ended. She looked at him for a few seconds before slowly moving closer. She stopped when she was about three feet away from him and stooped down so her face was the same level as his. A small smile creased her lips and she asked "Are you hungry?" Naruto just nodded dumbly and out of nowhere a tray piled with food appeared in her hands. She handed the tray to him and guided him to the small desk that was set at the corner of the small room. "Eat, and once you are done follow the hallway and go to the big room at the right of the end. There we will discuss what your future will be as long as you stay with us." With that she turned sharply and left without another word or even a whisper of sound from her movements.

Naruto looked back at the food and his stomach growled loudly reminding him that there was no reason to ignore the delicacies that were set in front of him. He dug in with gusto and before he even realized it he was done and gave a loud burp. He smiled as he rubbed his belly in content. Naruto's eyes suddenly shot open as he remembered what that woman had said and walked towards the room that she had asked him to. As he walked into the room, he saw twelve tall figures; all of them were silhouetted by the shadows that seemed to have enveloped the room even though it was bright day outside. He slowly moved forward and stood in the center of the circular room as the other twelve set of eyes seemed to contemplate what they intended to do with the jinchuuriki of the strongest and most volatile tailed beast. Finally a man spoke; the only feature that was clearly visible was his eyes and those were purple with spirals running over the pupils as well as the irises. He spoke with an air of power and authority that left no doubt in Naruto's mind that he was the leader, or the highest in command among all the people in that room. "Naruto Uzumaki, do you know why you are here?"

"No," Naruto said his loud voice echoing throughout the room.

"You are the jinchuuriki of the Nine-tailed Fox and the objective of Akatsuki is to collect and extract all the bijuus from their hosts. Since you are the nine-tailed fox, we cannot extract your bijuu from you yet."

"Does that mean I can go back?" asked Naruto even though he knew the answer to the question. Many small chuckles ran throughout the room and an outright laughter was heard from a guy who had a huge red scythe, slicked back white hair, and a maniacally evil face. One glance from their leader made him slow it down to a silent laughter that still raked his body every few seconds.

"No. You will remain under our care and will do as you are told, or else the consequence will be you spending the rest of your days in the dungeons. If you try to run or trick us the consequence will be the same. What I want to know is what do you want to do while you wait your turn for extraction?"

"Um…I don't know, I will probably train and then when I am strong enough I will kill that bastard Orochimaru, beat his little apprentice and drag him back to Konoha, and then once you are done extracting the fur-ball from me, I will go back and become the Hokage!" Naruto exclaimed the last part loud enough to be heard through the village of Amegakure. At that not just the white-haired guy, but almost every member in the room burst out laughing.

"Oh, this one will be enjoyable to have around," said the one Naruto knew as Kisame between bursts of laughter.

"So, I take it you wish to train?" asked their leader again when they had quieted down. Naruto nodded vigorously. "Then so it shall be. We will train you and give you missions to complete; you will do as we say. Is there anything else you wish to add?" Pain waited and when Naruto shook his head, he looked at the blue-haired lady again. She nodded and floated over to Naruto.

"Let's go back to your room, we have a lot of things to discuss," she said as she put a hand on his shoulder and guided him back towards the room where he had first woken up. Naruto did not need to be told twice, these people scared him more than he cared to admit, even to himself.

"You cannot be serious?" burst out Hidan when he was sure the boy was out of earshot.

"I am quite serious. And if you have a problem, then I suggest you deal with it because this boy is going to prove very important in our mission, in the future," replied Pain, effectively shutting him up.

"Who is going to the one responsible for training him?" came a gravelly voice and no one needed to be told that the one who had asked the question was Sasori the puppet master.

"We will have to assess the boy's skills and talents and then move from there. He is young, moldable, and has immense potential due to the mixture of bloodlines that he shares. He will be our asset, we will send him to capture the rest of the bijuus, and maybe even let him have Orochimaru and his little pet. It will be quite amusing to see Orochimaru realize his mistake for not realizing just how strong the Uzumaki truly is. We will start with his training tomorrow. The boy has fully recovered but I will give him one more day to rest up. Tobi, Itachi be at my office. The rest of you know what to do, you are all dismissed," said Pain before he shimmered and disappeared.

_IN KONOHA_

There was heavy silence in the room as all the council members waited for the Godaime Hokage to appear. The meeting was called as soon as Danzo's spies had informed that the Uchiha heir as well as the jinchuuriki had both disappeared from the village. Many of the civilian council members sat with smiles in their faces that indicated that they were quite happy with the Jinchuuriki gone, the fools did not understand the implications that Konoha was in because now they missed one of the strongest weapons in all the elemental nations. Finally a puffy eyed Tsunade walked in followed closely by Jiraiya, Kakashi, and her eternal assistant Shizune. Among the audience stood all the Konoha eleven, save for the ones who were currently admitted in the hospital for treatment. Their parents were also present unless they sat in the council itself, and many civilians were also there, this was a meeting of utmost importance after all.

"What is going on Tsunade?" asked Danzo, as he moved to stand up from his chair, he was addressing the village leader, and had to show respect no matter what his opinion was of her.

"Kakashi, please tell the council what you found," ordered Jiraiya from his place next to the wall.

"Yes, Jiraiya-sama! I followed the trail that the genin took as soon as I got information that Naruto and his genin teammates had gone after Sasuke to bring him back. But when I got there, I found no-one only these two things," Kakashi held up two zip lock bags, one held a Konoha head-band while the other held Tsunade's necklace that she had given to Naruto. "The only remains I found were a pool of blood. From the valley the trail went completely cold. I looked for a trail or some kind of mark that would lead me towards them but there was none. It seemed that their trail was erased on purpose, by someone far stronger than me," Kakashi finished and stepped back to his original spot.

"Are you saying that we lost one of our most important assets because of the Hokage sending him on a mission?" asked Danzo, he had hard edge to his voice as he stared at Tsunade. Next instant, he was hit with a killing-intent so strong, that his hands went numb and his crutch fell on the hard-wood floor with a loud clatter.

"I would be careful about what tone I am using when I am speaking to the Hokage," said Jiraiya, and even though his face showed no sign of animosity, Danzo could feel well enough that it was coming from Jiraiya.

"So what do we do now?" asked Shikaku, breaking the building tension between the Sannins and Danzo.

"Continue with restoring the village to the way it was, there is an influx of patients so I am going to need more medics, I want a genin group prepared to meet me tomorrow at the hospital. The Uchiha district is closed off and I am sealing the entrance, now it's a forbidden zone of class one security. All the assets of the clan had been transferred to Konoha's assets and will be used for the benefit of Konoha only. Are there any questions?" said Tsunade, her voice as cold as a glacier.

"You can't take the Uchiha assts, it belong to the heir of the clan, Sasuke. As for the district, you can't seal it without his permission," said a civilian council member earning nods of agreement from some fellow members as well.

"For your information, your precious Uchiha has deserted the village, he left with Orochimaru. I have not declared him a missing-nin yet but if you don't stop with the pointless favoritism, I will and also set all the hunter-nins I have on his tail. So shut up!" shouted Tsunade, the civilian hit the floor unconscious, unable to handle the amount of killer-intent radiating from Tsunade. Even some of the clan-heads leaned away from her, uncomfortable with the thought that the Godaime Hokage's wrath might turn to them.

"And what of the Uzumaki?" asked Danzo, crutch back in hand.

"I have sent four ANBU squads looking for him, but we strongly believe that he is dead," said Tsunade, her voice cracked at the end and she sat back down, trying the hold the tears that were already forming in her eyes from falling.

"What evidence do you have of that?" Danzo asked again, this time he was more than a little concerned.

"The pool of blood that we found belonged to him," said Jiraiya slowly, in a low voice. First he lost his student, who was like a son to him and now his god-son who was more like a grand-son. How many times will he fail before his miserable life ended?

"That does not mean that he is dead. It might mean that he had woken up and left or could have been that some other people might have him," reasoned Danzo. Konoha losing their jinchuuriki made them weaker and more vulnerable to attack from other villages. They were already suffering from the Sand/Sound invasion as it is.

"No boy his age could lose that much blood and survive. I have already been to the valley," said Tsunade, confirming her point that Naruto was indeed dead.

"Then where is the body?"

"We are still looking but I think that wild animals got to him before we did," replied Kakashi, Tsunade couldn't contain her tears at that and they started flowing freely down her face. Seeing this, Jiraiya was the first to act.

"For now the meeting is over," said Jiraiya with no less authority than the Hokage herself.

"But—" started a council member but shut up when a hard glare was directed towards him from the Sage Sannin, and the council member apologized immediately not wanting to face his wrath in any manner, seeing what happened to his friend a few minutes ago.

Tsunade, Jiraiya, Kakashi, and Shizune all made their way back to the Hokage tower where Shizune got busy behind the receptionist's desk. Kakashi placed his report on the Hokage's desk, took a glance at the sobbing Hokage and then left, closing the door softly behind his back. When the door clicked shut, Tsunade couldn't maintain her already slipping stoicism any more, she clutched Jiraiya like her life depended on it and cried to her heart's content on his chest. He also held her close to him and tried to give as much comfort he could as possible, knowing what she felt as he was also feeling a similar pain at losing Naruto. Outside, noises of celebration could be heard as the villagers rejoiced that the demon that resided in Konoha had finally met its end.

**Well, what do you think? This is only my second fic so I definitely will welcome critical reviews and please point out my mistakes, that way I can improve my writing and provide with more satisfying results. The idea for this fiction came to me when I realized that Itachi was intended to be a mole among the Akatsuki when he finally rejoined Konoha at the fourth shinobi world war. Caution: This fic will have a darker plot, and a darker Naruto. He is mature and cunning, and he has motives of his own. Oh and there is also a big time skip coming up ahead! If you want to find out where this will go keep reading and please review!**

**Poll: Do you want Naruto to wield Kubiriki Bocho (Zabuza's sword)?**

**Thanks, **

**Tanneal **


	2. Reunion

**Reunion **

_4 YEARS LATER_

Sakura Haruno arrived at the Gates of Konoha to find all the others waiting for her. Today was turning out to be an extremely interesting day for her. First she got promoted in the hospital to head medic of a department, and the Tsunade had called her in her office for very important news.

_**Flashback **_

Sakura entered her teacher's and the Godaime Hokage's office a little uncertainly as she saw all the important council members present there along with Jiraiya of the Sannin and all the four known Jounin senseis of her and her friend's genin teams. She bowed as was expected to all the council members before moving to the side to stand beside Shizune.

"Why have you called us here Tsunade?" asked Homura in his usual boring voice. It was not miracle that most of the boys used to skip out coming to the academy when it was him coming to lecture because they would fall asleep anyway. Tsunade stood up from her seat and walked towards the window overlooking the village.

"Jiraiya has news of Sasuke Uchiha and Orochimaru's current hideout and location. I am currently assembling a scouting team and an interception team if the information turns out to be true," answered Tsunade, and Sakura's heart missed a beat.

"In that case I should have been the first one to know, my teams would be on the move already," drawled Danzo, ANBU was always ready.

"Yeah," Jiraiya smirked. "And they would have been as successful as a bunch of genins trying to take down the Hokage." A small smile also touched the Godaime's lips at that but she quickly wiped it before turning back towards the audience in her office.

"Jiraiya has a point. None of your root Shinobi is as capable at tracking as some of the Chuunins and Jounins that I have put to the task for this mission," Tsunade paused to see if anyone would intercept her and sure enough Koharu did.

"And who might these excellent trackers be?" she asked in a snide tone, as if she didn't know what kind of ninjas Tsunade was talking about. Taking a deep breath to keep her rising temper in check the Godaime Hokage continued.

"Scouting the area will be the job of Team Eight as they have the most experience I these kinds of situations. Team Guy will be the interception with Team Ten as backup. The field medic for this mission will be my own apprentice Sakura Haruno and since Asuma Sarutobi and Kurenai Yuuhi are not currently present in Konoha this will be lead by Might Guy and Kakashi Hatake. Any questions?"

"You are sending only two experienced Jounins and nine children for this mission? You do realize that your ex-teammate Orochimaru is still with the Uchiha don't you?" protested Koharu and Homura nodded his to show that he concurred with her.

"These children that you speak of are soldiers of Konoha and the best Shinobis of the up and coming generation. So yes I am sending some of the best soldiers of this village after the Uchiha because our council has decided that he is still too precious to lose from the village," growled Tsunade loosing enough killing intent to make Koharu and Homura shiver in fear. Jiraiya and Guy were smirking while Danzo had a disgusted expression on his face.

"Fine Tsunade we will do this according to your plans," said Danzo before he limped out, his stick clacking incessantly on the floor. Homura and Koharu shot Tsunade a fearful look before hurrying after the old war-hawk.

"Sakura, after all the time you have kept asking me here is the mission you had been looking for. I am hoping that you will make the best of it," she paused and looked at Sakura, who nodded vigorously. "Now, you are all dismissed, get to the East gate in an hour for departure, the rest of the information you will get there from us personally. Go!" Kakashi and Guy simply vanished while Shizune jumped at the sudden change at the volume of Tsunade's voice. Sakura also walked out of her office at a brisk pace.

_**Flashback **_

"Hime calm down, I think you are overreacting to this issue a little bit don't you think?" asked Jiraiya in a soft voice as Tsunade slumped back in her chair.

"You know that I have all the right to overreact at this!" she shot back at the white haired Sannin, who knew all too well what his ex-teammate had to go through at the loss of the boy she considered to be her grandson. She had to put up a tough front in front of the rest of the Shinobis as their Hokage but inside she was going into depression because of grief and worry.

"I know I miss him too," said the Toad Sage as he also sat down in one of the empty chairs across the desk from Tsunade.

"Hey forehead it's been a long time since we have been in a mission together don't you think?" shouted Ino from her perch on the Konoha wall as she shook her hand vigorously at the pink haired friend. Sakura looked up startled before recognizing her friend and smiled.

"I know pig," said Sakura as Ino jumped down from the wall, followed by Rock Lee.

"So what do you think is Sasuke-kun going to be like?" asked Ino with a dreamy expression on her face.

"Like his old self only broodiness increased," snorted Kiba. He was leaning against the wall with Shino who was apparently communicating with one of his bugs that was sitting on his left index finger by wiggling his eyebrows in a series of motions.

"Shut it dog-boy!" shouted both the Kunoichis pointing their fingers at Kiba with furious expressions on their faces. Kiba lifted his hands up, there was no way he was going to get Sakura mad at him, he had found out Sakura's monstrous strength the hard way.

"What is it, old nick-names day?" muttered Kiba as he backed away.

"The Hokage and Jiraiya-sama are here," said Neji, he was looking towards the two people walking swiftly towards them, escorted by two masked and uniformed Ninjas. Kakashi shut his book with a very audible snap, and many of the other shinobis picked up their bags or scrolls that they had set on the ground while they waited for further orders.

Tsunade and Jiraiya finally reached the gate and handed a scroll to Kakashi before Jiraiya started talking.

"So you guys are headed towards Otogakure, a very obscure part of the land that Orochimaru took over several years ago because they harbored a grudge against Konoha. It will take you about six to seven hours to get there and that is if you are making good time. So you should get there by late afternoon. For your scouting mission I want Shikamaru to lead it because he had done it before when you went to get him back once before and almost succeeded. I want him to take the Inuzuka and the Hyuuga and check the scents and use her Byakugan to see if there is anybody in that abandoned tunnel system under the stone structure. Assuming that they are in that location I want the interception to split into two parts. Kakashi you will lead the main assault team with Akimichi, the Hyuuga prodigy, Lee and Sakura mainly for medical purposes. The other team will be Guy with Tenten, Yamanaka, and Aburame. The back up team will be the rest of you and you will keep tabs on all the members as they proceed into action and will jump in at any sign of trouble or strife. Understood?" asked Jiraiya, he was in full blown Professor Mode. Tsunade was impressed; it seems he had taken more than one trait from their Genin team instructor, Hiruzen Sarutobi.

"Hai!" replied Shikamaru, Guy, and Kakashi at the same time.

"Well then move out," he shouted and they all leapt out of the village and onto the trees.

For hours the group travelled following route that was given to them by Jiraiya and lead by the Nin dogs that Kakashi had summoned. Finally they neared a big abandoned area near the mountains that was barren of any greenery and looked like a place where all the rubble was collected from the surrounding mountains.

"This place is barren, where can we find Sasuke-kun here?" asked Ino as she looked around the abandoned place.

"Keep your voice down and stay out of sight," hissed Sakura as she knelt down behind one of the big boulders and unpacked her medical kit. All the other followed suite and hid behind the rubble lying around.

"Shikamaru scout this place out," ordered Kakashi as Shikamaru nodded and motioned for Hinata and Kiba to come with him. Hinata already had her Byakugan activated and was acutely scanning the surroundings to find any signs of Sasuke or any living people around the place for that matter.

"Kiba what do you smell?" asked Shikamaru as he led them back into the forest and going around the perimeter to find any signs of a door or an entrance into the big stone structure.

"This place is definitely not empty but the smell is faint, like it's farther away from here. I don't get it," informed Kiba as Shikamaru nodded before looking at Hinata to see if she had anything to add to Kiba's observation. After looking around for a few more seconds she smiled.

"There is a maze of tunnels crisscrossing under that stone, and there are a small number of people down there. At most five at least two," Hinata said nodding towards the ground where Akamaru started sniffing with renewed vigor.

"She is right, there are people underground!" whispered Kiba after a little bit of sniffing.

"That's clever," muttered Shikamaru as he thought of a good way to get close to them before they realized what was going on. "Hinata, can you tell if there are any entrances into the tunnels, and where they are inside the tunnels?"

"No, I can't tell where they are exactly, but I have detected two entry points that lead to the main tunnel underground which connects to all the other tunnels. One entry point is there at the base," Hinata pointed at a small hole near the base of the stone structure, and then moved her hand pointing to another spot. "And there is the other one; it will drop us off at a corner. Strategically this one will be better if you are planning on stealth."

"Good job, let's report this back to the others and then we can talk about how to proceed. It will be dark in a few hours, but that will probably be disadvantageous for us. Let's hurry," ordered Shikamaru as he turned back towards the place where the others were waiting for them to return.

"Kakashi, how do you propose we go about attacking this stronghold?" asked Guy as he awaited the scouting trio's return.

"Hmm, I can't be sure but I am guessing that there is at least more than one entry point into the stronghold. I am going to take the more obvious one and lead the assault team, and you guys can take the other once we have diverted their attention and reinforce us once we have started the combat, for now that is the best I can come up with until now," said Kakashi, he was already reading the old orange book that he always does. Guy sighed, how many times is he going to read the book before he gets enough of it?

"Well you don't have to wait that long, Shikamaru is here already." Guy nodded his head towards the trees where he could see Shikamaru returning followed by Kiba, Akamaru, and Hinata. Kakashi nodded, tucking the book away once again. Shikamaru landed next to the boulder behind which Neji and Lee were hiding. He talked for a little bit with both of them before beckoning the rest of them to gather closer.

"All right we know for sure that there are people in there. Hinata says that there are somewhere between two and five people. She also said that the structure is a fluke; the real base is underground, among the tunnels. There are two entrances; the most obvious one is the one right there at the base of the structure. The other one, a better one if we are considering stealth is that one near the trees, it provides more cover and if we can make it in without making too much noise, we can catch them off guard," said Shikamaru pointing out the entrances and then explaining his theory about how to go about the mission.

"Underground very clever," said Kakashi, thinking aloud it also got the attention of the rest of the group. "Okay, we are going to use both the entrances. The main interception team will use the one that will get the most attention. We will face them in combat and then Guy's team will join in as reinforcement. Guy you and your group will use the entrance at the trees and do not engage until I signal you to do so. Right now we are all linked through ear-plugs but if anything happens to our connection, I will use hand signal to show when you are to engage. Shikamaru you will wait with Hinata, Tenten, Kiba, and Akamaru, you will be our second reinforcement. I will hear no arguments," said Kakashi in a firm voice as he saw Tenten and Kiba was about to protest. "We will move in five minutes. Make sure you are ready. Sakura I want you to be ready for combat as well as treatment, you are one of the people I will be depending on the most because you are both field and medical ready. I hope you are ready this time." Kakashi gave a look that made it clear to Sakura that he will tolerate no failure and hesitance this time. Last time she was a genin, and a fan-girl, but this time she had to be the soldier she was training all this time to be. Sakura nodded, understanding what Kakashi meant.

"So what now, we wait?" asked Ino in a hushed voice, there was fear evident across her face, this was her first mission that was above A-rank. Sakura nodded and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, she remembered her first S-rank mission, if Naruto wasn't there to keep her spirits up, she would have been depressed after facing Zabuza the first time. His name and thoughts brought back painful memories. "Why did you have to kill him Sasuke-kun? What happened that day at the waterfall?" she scrunched her eyes shut trying to suppress the emotions and tears welling up inside her. She took a few calming breaths and opened her eyes, her composure had returned. She gave a small squeeze to Ino's shoulder before standing up, ready to do what must be done.

Kakashi also stood up, looked around and nodded. He moved straight for the entrance at the base of the structure, across the boulder strewn ground, followed closely by Neji, Rock Lee, Choji, and finally Sakura bringing up the rear. Kakashi landed next to the small opening, removed his Hitai-ate and peered in before jumping in. Every-one followed, it seems there was no immediate danger after entering. Sakura followed Choji and jumped in, it was a small drop and she hit the floor with a small splash. There was water, ankle deep at the bottom of the tunnel.

Everyone waited for a few minutes, waiting for Choji's and Sakura's eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the tunnel. Neji was looking around, his Byakugan blazing and suddenly his eyes grew large and he kept staring before deactivating it. "What did you see?" asked Kakashi already concerned that it was not going to be as easy as it looked.

"It was at the edge of my range but I saw him," said Neji, there was no need to name him as everyone knew who he was talking about. "He knows we are here." Kakashi nodded, and then straightened; there was no need to use stealth if the person they were trying to use stealth on already knew about their presence.

"No need to hide ourselves then," he muttered and started walking, quite boldly towards the opening that was visible at the end of the tunnel. Neji, always one to follow orders did just that, while Choji looked at Sakura, shrugged, and started following them. Sakura wondered if it was wise, what if that other Sannin was there with him? But she didn't have a choice so she did what all the others did and started following Kakashi towards the end of the tunnel.

"Sakura"

Sakura's eyes widened and she looked up, finally her eyes landing on a silhouette of the boy she had yearned to see for the last four years. Yet, for reasons that were not clear to her, she definitely did not love him anymore, she wasn't sure if she liked him either. The reason why she really wanted to meet him was to know the truth about what happened that day when Sasuke left the village, and Naruto…well nobody really knew what happened to him. Sasuke was standing on the higher ground, the tunnel opened up at a small clearing with higher ground surrounding it from all sides and the only way to escape was back through the tunnel.

"Kukuku, Sasuke-kun it is quite a reunion isn't it?" chuckled a pale, long black haired as he came into everyone's view and stopped behind Sasuke.

"Yes, it seems you are still quite popular in Konoha," said Kabuto, also coming into point of view of the others.

"Damn," thought Kakashi. "Everyone's here, I can't call out Guy in front of everyone, Sakura you better be ready, someone's going to get hurt severely in this." Kakashi's train of thoughts broke when Neji started talking.

"Sasuke Uchiha, you are hereby under arrest by the decree of missing Shinobi under the law of Konoha, if you resist force will be used against you."

"Hn, you will use force, against me?" asked Sasuke, in a tone that conveyed astonishment and pure ridiculousness.

"Yes, that does sound a little amusing," said Orochimaru, with his hand on his chin.

"Katon, fireball jutsu," shouted Choji and shot four balls straight at Sasuke.

"Damn it Choji, I told you not to attack without my orders," shouted Kakashi, his hands were already running through seals. "Doton: Earth Style Wall!" A massive wall rose from the ground in front of them well above sixteen feet high, blocking off the opposing trio, at least for a few moments.

"Wrong move!" came a snarling voice and every-one whirled around to see Sasuke stranding there at the mouth of the tunnel, sword out crackling with lightning chakra. He had a ferocious expression on his face, and his eyes were spinning red of the Sharingan. He readied his blade and started charging, his sword aimed straight at Sakura's heart.

"SHIT!" thought Kakashi but he knew he won't reach them in time. Sakura closed her eyes, she knew she was nowhere near as fast as Sasuke and he was coming full speed at her, and then…

_CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!_

Sakura tentatively opened her eyes to see something that she had never expected. There, in front of her was the crouched form of another Shinobi. He was clad in a complete black outfit, a body fitting sleeveless leather jacket, plants tucked into leather shin length boots, and leather fingerless gauntlets that went about halfway up his forearms. He had a cloth wrapped around his head covering his hair and forehead, and had mask that covered everything below the nose, the only feature that was visible were his startlingly bright blue eyes. He slowly stood up to his full height; almost a head taller than Sasuke. The force with which he had thrown the massive shurikens had driven Sasuke farther back into the tunnel.

"KAAAA!" everyone looked up to see a massive bird made up of what seemed to be…clay flying overhead.

"You will not lay a finger on her," he stated, with such calm as if he was stating a fact.

"Hn, and who are you?" asked Sasuke, there was a smirk on his face, maybe Konoha had someone that could be a real challenge for him after all.

"Why don't you unmask me?" asked his opponent, the challenge quite clear in his voice.

"My pleasure," muttered Sasuke and he strode forward confidently, slowly spinning his sword with practiced ease.

"Kakashi what's your status? Are you there? Conflict has started where are you dammit?" came Gai's loud voice in Kakashi's ears.

"Tell your group to stand down; it seems we have a new ally. He appeared out of nowhere and is confronting the target right now. I repeat stand down, I will report status again later," Kakashi whispered back hoarsely, intently watching the stranger just standing there casually waiting for Sasuke to get to him. "He must have a death wish," thought Kakashi. "Sasuke is an expert with that weapon, enhanced in speed and power because of the chakra he was channeling through the blade making him on par with some of the greatest swordsmen in all the elemental nations."

"Tell me Uchiha, how many Akatsukis have you faced in your life?" asked the stranger suddenly out of the blue making Sasuke stop in his tracks.

"None of your business but I have an ambition—"

"You have an ambition to kill someone and revive your clan blah, blah, blah, already heard that dude, do you ever change your dialogue?" asked the stranger much to Sakura's chagrin making a smirk appear on Neji's face and Choji just laughed outright. To say Sasuke was outraged would be an understatement; he was boiling inside seeing the blatant disregard in his opponent for him and his clan.

"I will make sure mine is the last face you will see," thought Sasuke silently making the vow that today would be his opponent's last he charged again, this time aiming for the insolent fool's heart. Much to everyone's surprise, the stranger dodged it. Sasuke frowned, nobody had ever dodged a strike from him, surely he got lucky. He swung again, this time a horizontal strike, and again his strike was evaded, this time he swayed back like a tree in a breeze. Frustrated, Sasuke swung in a series of complicated sword maneuvers and each strike or swing was dodged, it was an enthralling dance of chance and danger that the stranger was playing, and all the more beautiful because of it. In comparison Sasuke appeared to be an amateur whose strikes were haphazardly thrown just with the intention of cutting the other man however possible. Suddenly the stranger spun around, getting inside Sasuke's guard. He struck his opponent's sword arm once, making him drop it, and then gave a powerful punch to his chest, making him slide back into the tunnel several feet away.

Everyone just stared, stunned at the simple display of physical excellence and proficiency in Tai jutsu. Sasuke looked up, clutching his bruised and sore chest, his face scrunched with pain and confusion. "Who are you?" he asked, this was no ordinary ninja if he was able to hurt him without getting a scratch on himself.

"Look underneath the underneath," replied the stranger, making everyone's eyes grow wide, this was Kakashi's famous line, and the only people who had heard it were from Konoha.

"Kabuto help out the boy," said Orochimaru after witnessing the ease with which his prized pupil was unarmed, this stranger could possibly kill Sasuke if they did not intervene. Kabuto nodded sharply, pushed his glasses back up on the ridge of his nose and jumped down landing smoothly between Sasuke and the abnormally strong man.

"Ah, a second snake joins the first," said the stranger his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Do not mock me boy, you have no idea what I am capable of," retorted Kabuto, a scalpel laced with chakra appeared in each hand.

"You are one to say? You have no idea what I am capable of," said the stranger, emphasizing the 'I'. "If you still want to know, I know that you are proficient in medical nin-jutsu and are one of the most key elements in Orochimaru's research. If it wasn't for you many of that Snake-Sannin's research wouldn't have succeeded. I know your Nin jutsu is limited and your Tai jutsu skills are below Jounin, so tell me again what do I not know about you?"

"That you would be foolish to try taking us both on at the same time," said Sasuke as he walked out of the tunnel to stand beside Kabuto.

"Yeah well that's a chance I have to take now won't I?" asked the stranger as he picked up Sasuke's sword and sealed it in a small scroll before facing the duo again.

"Hey give me my sword back!" shouted Sasuke, not only was that his only weapon, it was also coated with unique venom that only Orochimaru knew the antidote for, it wouldn't do to fall in the wrong hands.

"No, can't do need to figure out what type of venom you two keep using in your swords," said the black-clad Shinobi indicating Orochimaru and Sasuke. The Uchiha's face contorted in an expression of anger and soon his hands were glowing with the tell-tale signs of electricity and the sound of chirping birds filled the area.

"Let's see how you dodge this?" muttered Sasuke before running full speed at Naruto, not even the fastest ninja could dodge this.

"Crap, either I have to use Rasengan to counter it, or Hiraishin to dodge it. Both of these could give away my identity," thought the black-clad shinobi for the split second he had before making up his mind. With a black streak, he was next to Kabuto and kicked him in the side sending him tumbling before turning around to see a stunned Sasuke looking at him. Wait, no everybody in that area was looking at him with a stunned expression that was what had happened when he had used Hiraishin for the first time in front of the Akatsuki too; they were all little taken aback by the ingenuity with sealing arts of the fourteen year old.

"What, you didn't think that I would just let you run me through with Chidori, that would be foolish!" said the stranger in a voice as if it was no big deal that he had dodged one of Sasuke's signature moves.

"H-how?" asked Sakura in a quiet voice as she looked at Kakashi, who seemed to not pay attention to anything after witnessing the flash movement of the stranger.

"Well Sakura, to tell you the truth I have only seen one person do anything that was close to what that man did, but I am not entirely sure whether it was even the same technique or not," replied the silver haired Jounin with a faraway look on his face. On the other side, Kabuto slowly got up, but no one was actually paying attention to towards him, this was his chance to turn the tables. Sasuke was also thinking along the same lines. Tai jutsu I cannot match his strength, Nin jutsu is also pretty useless, that only leaves Gen jutsu. Sasuke looked directly at the stranger's eyes and started to activate a genjutsu. Naruto immediately shut his eyes as soon as he noticed the tomes in Sasuke's eyes starting to spin, he will not fall for the same old Uchiha trick, Itachi had made sure of that when he started training the young jinchuuriki, he knew it was fated that Naruto and Sasuke would meet in battle. He had taught Naruto how to use his ears to their maximum ability as well as feel the movement in the air and the vibrations of ground with skin and feet.

Kiba suddenly realized that the stranger had completely stopped moving. He was standing as still as a statue, even his eyes were closed. "What the hell is he doing?" asked Kiba to Choji, who shrugged. Nothing the stranger was doing seemed normal, but he was pulling his own quite well against shinobis like Sasuke and Kabuto. He turned back to see the stranger was moving again at Sasuke, but his eyes were still closed. Sasuke suddenly realized that the stranger was moving and directly towards him. His eyes were closed that meant he couldn't see him. Sasuke let him get close, this time he could attack the man, after all he couldn't see at all. But to Sasuke's utter surprise, as soon as he was close enough to Sasuke his leg shot out. A solid kick to Sasuke's stomach send him rolling in the same direction as Kabuto, but unlike Kabuto he came up on his knees clutching his stomach, breathing hard.

"We have to end it now Sasuke-kun," whispered Kabuto into Sasuke's ears, this fight was a losing fight, that masked ninja alone was proving to be more than a match for them. Sasuke nodded, if they didn't retreat now they were going to take the chance of getting captured, the one thing that Sasuke couldn't risk happening yet. Kabuto nodded and discreetly pulled out a senbon needle, it was laced with enough poison to paralyze someone for up to three days. It was not life threatening but it was dangerous to the body and the victim could risk paralysis if not treated fast. "This should put a stop to them," he thought and flicked it towards closest Shinobi in front of him. That Shinobi just happened to be Kakashi, but he was deep in thought and never noticed the needle speeding towards him. Naruto immediately noticed the very faint whistling sound that the senbon was doing, as well as felt the change in the air.

"Why would any of them use a senbon," thought the Jinchuuriki to himself. "Unless… POISON!" Naruto took off running and launched himself in the air, making sure that his body and the little projectile connected and sure enough it buried itself into his upper forearm. The effects of the poison took effect immediately and Naruto felt like he couldn't control his limbs and came crashing down on the ground. Kakashi's eyes widened as soon as the stranger passed in front of him before collapsing, a tiny but discernable senbon was sticking out of his bare skin.

"Did he just take a hit for me?" wondered the Jounin, but his battle instincts soon took over and he ordered the rest of them to attack immediately. "Everyone attack! Gai move in, this is the time to bring out all the stops, GO!" Everyone attacked the Uchiha but he was already on the move and Kabuto quickly summoned a gigantic snake king Manda. As soon as the great boss of the snake summons came out, the chase was pretty much over since none of them had a summon that could rival that and Sakura had not yet been able to summon Katsuyu, she hadn't been able to summon any slug that was bigger than her yet, and it was needless to say they wouldn't be much of a challenge to Manda. As everyone turned back they saw that the white clay bird that they had seen earlier was in the crater and an Akatsuki member was lifting the black clad shinobi onto its saddle. Kakashi and Gai jumped back in, and cautiously approached the Akatsuki. He had long blonde hair that was tied in a ponytail but the loose locks covered his right eye anyway.

"You still can't hold it in you for these Konoha Nins can you?" he was saying to the black clad Ninja as he laid the man down on the saddle.

"Who are you?" shouted Kakashi, though it was painfully obvious what he was because of the robe he was wearing.

"Unn? I thought Konoha was actually becoming a threat to us?" said the blonde ninja just as loudly sounding a little surprised. "These robes should be enough to tell you who I am."

"Why were you helping us then?" asked Kakashi, genuinely curious that Akatsuki would actually aid them, and in an important mission nonetheless.

"Well since you ask, Orochimaru and that brat of his has been a nuisance to us just as he has been one to Konoha, Akatsuki thought this would be a good opportunity to remove it," replied the ninja as he climbed onto the saddle himself. "If you were a little more cautious maybe then he wouldn't have had to put himself at risk and save you."

"Who is he? And why would he risk his life to save mine?"

'That is for you to figure out unn," said the Akatsuki before his bird took flight.

**Okay here is another chapter of the new story. I was going to make this a longer chapter, but since this is just the beginning I am keeping it to a good reading length. I know I had the prologue on Fanfic up before but I had to take it down because my first chapter was all messed up, so I am putting it back up now that I have the final form of the first chapter. Again I am cautioning you that this fic is going to be dark and Naruto is going to have a personality that many might not like. HE is mature and he is strong, if you live with a bunch of S-class criminals for four years, I doubt you will remain weak. Hopefully you will like the intro, and if you want to discuss the story in more details just shoot me a P.M. Any ideas and critical reviews will be welcome so don't forget to review! **


	3. The Mission

**The Mission**

Kakashi and Gai led the rest of the Chuunins and the Jounins from their mission back to Konoha. It was quite dark and since winter was arriving, the cold was getting chilly and everybody had either a vest or some kind of winter wear to ward off the cold air of the night. They were all silent and there had been very little talk among the group of Shinobis on their way back. Everybody knew that their failure will not make their Hokage happy; on the contrary many were debating whether they should make a run for it as soon as they entered Konoha or to stay with their Jounin instructors and literally risk their necks. As soon as the Konoha gate appeared in their line of vision Kakashi spoke. "If any of you decide to run for home then all the blame will be put on that person." There was a chorus of groans, but they grudgingly admitted to themselves that the man was far smarter than he let on.

Shizune had already relayed the news of their return and failure to the Hokage who was sleeping at that moment after a long day of finishing piles of paperwork, and she did not appear to be pleased at the notion that they had returned empty handed. "Enter," she nearly growled when there was a barely audible knock on the door of her office. Surprisingly, it was Shizune that entered first, followed by Kakashi, Gai, and the rest of the teens. "Shizune, you may leave now," she ordered, and her assistant jumped before nodding rapidly and running out of her office.

"So much for that cover," thought Kakashi grimly as he looked at their Hokage, who looked more like a hungry tigress staring at her prey than the leader of Konoha.

"Report," ordered the Godaime Hokage in an icy voice.

"Yes ma'am," said Kakashi after clearing his throat, he continued. "As you already know this mission was a failure, I will jump to the details. Everything was going smoothly and according to plan when…" he trailed off as another Sannin joined them. He looked like he had been roused from sleep, but he didn't say anything as he jumped in from the window and took his spot leaning against the wall. The two Sannins acknowledged each other with a nod before they both turned and looked at Kakashi, who gulped visibly. "Everything was going according to plan but somehow they knew that knew we were coming for them, they were waiting for us, ready for a fight." Kakashi stopped waiting for either one of the seniors in the room to speak, but the Sannins were not surprised that Orochimaru already knew about this, as Sannins you are always aware of what is going on around you, and the snake had been on the run for decades, he of all people would keep his senses trained to the max if he had been avoiding getting captured for so many years.

"Continue please, Kakashi," said Jiraiya if they had fought it was unlikely that they wouldn't be able to capture even one of the three traitors, something must have gone south on this mission.

"Well, since they had the high ground, I was trying to form a plan to take them from both sides but before I could give the order to hold back one of us attacked Sasuke. It was a clear sign of hostility and they responded in kind. It seems that Sasuke is better than we anticipated and he was able to go through my barrier and attacked Sakura, we had no way of preventing it until…" again the silver haired Jounin stopped, much to the irritation of the Sannins in the room.

"Until what?" snapped the Hokage, she was getting too old for this job after all.

"Until he showed up," said Sakura, picking it up from where Kakashi left off.

"Who showed up?" asked Jiraiya straightening up from his leaning position, all his attention on the apprentice of his old teammate, even Tsunade leaned forward on her chair, resting her chin back of her hands, fingers crisscrossed.

"We don't know but he was one hell of a fighter," said Kiba from the back of the group.

"So he was an unknown shinobi," concluded the Hokage but Sakura disagreed with a shake of her head.

"We don't know that, his face was completely covered, but his voice…it sounded like someone I have heard before but I couldn't place it," said the pink haired medic in a frustrated tone.

"Hinata, didn't you get a good look at his face?" asked Tsunade, wondering why she never used her Byakugan on the unknown Shinobi.

"I never saw him, Hokage-sama, I was outside the base as back-up," explained the purple haired Chuunin looking at the ground as if it was her fault that she wasn't there.

"What about you Neji?" asked Jiraiya.

"My full attention was on the targets; therefore I didn't deem it necessary to know that identity of the stranger who was helping us," said Neji a little icily that made Jiraiya back off from the Hyuuga prodigy.

"I see, so what happened?" asked the Hokage again turning back to Kakashi.

"Well, Sasuke attacked Sakura and he was faster, much faster than before and Sakura would have surely been injured but out of nowhere Sasuke was stopped when he was barraged with five heavy-assault shurikens. He dodged the first two but had no choice other than to stop the next three using his sword," Kakashi was about to continue when the Hokage exclaimed.

"They had heavy assault weapons?" Tsunade looked at them with wide eyes that meant that this shinobi was planning on taking down the base for quite some time; maybe there was a strong ally of Konoha with a common enemy.

"No, the dude threw those heavy assault weapons with his hands," said Kiba and Tsunade nearly fell off her chair.

"WHAT?"

"Yes, that man was astonishingly strong physically, he threw the heavy assault shurikens like they weighed no more than Fuma shurikens," said Neji, dispelling any arguments that Tsunade might have formed against 'dog-boy' as she liked to call Kiba whenever she was annoyed by the Inuzuka clan heir's stupidity.

"Hokage-sama, calm down," said Kakashi holding both hands palms facing forward.

"Yes Hokage-sama, we all saw his most youthful display of strength," shouted Lee, much to the irritation of everyone present in the room except for Gai.

"What happened after that?" asked Jiraiya, bringing everyone back to the issue at hand.

"Oh right," said Kakashi before continuing. "So he intercepted Sasuke's charge and engaged him in a Tai jutsu match, which wasn't really a match since he unarmed Sasuke and knocked him back within a few seconds."

"Yes, that Shinobi's tai jutsu was of high quality, and his postures were flawless, I would say that he was even better than Lee when he has weights on," said Gai, making Lee make another one of his infamous challenges to himself, which made everyone get a sweat drop on their heads (except for Gai of course).

"Then the Shinobi sealed away Sasuke's sword saying that he wanted to analyze what kind of poison Orochimaru was using and possibly find an antidote to that," said Sakura, Tsunade had been trying to that ever since she realized that Orochimaru had concocted a new kind of poison, it could be catastrophic if he released that into Konoha, as they had no defense against it. Kakashi picked it up from there again.

"Yes, after he sealed away Sasuke's sword, he faced Kabuto and Sasuke together, and still they were hard pressed to do anything against him. He took out Kabuto with just one kick before moving onto Sasuke. Sasuke was about to use a gen jutsu on him, but the man knew how to fight with his eyes closed," as Kakashi paused many nodded their assent as they had all seen how the Shinobi had taken out Sasuke without even looking at the Uchiha. Tsunade was finding this shinobi more and more intriguing with every passing second.

"Yes, if Kabuto hadn't done that sneak attack, I am pretty sure that all of them would have been either captured or killed today," said Choji without the slightest doubt in his voice.

"Sneak attack? On Kakashi?" asked Jiraiya, a smirk was forming on his face; finally it seems that the silver-haired Jounin had slipped.

"Yes, Kabuto attacked me with a senbon that paralyzes the body instantly, if that ninja had not taken the hit for me, I would have been in a hospital bed right now," said Kakashi with a disappointed expression on his face.

"He took the hit for you? Why?" asked Tsunade, a little surprised at this new development.

"To that we have no answer," said Gai.

"What happened after that?" asked Jiraiya curiously.

"After that ninja collapsed, we all attacked Sasuke and Kabuto together but he summoned Manda and we didn't really have another summon that could counter the Snake king's strength," said Kakashi.

"Who summoned Manda?" asked Jiraiya seriously, making the Jounin wonder why it was so important.

"I didn't really see, but I am guessing it was Kabuto," said Kakashi a little hesitantly.

"It was the Uchiha that summoned the snake," said Neji confidently, that Kabuto did not have enough chakra left to summon a creature of that size and power.

"So he has become a true apprentice to Orochimaru," said Jiraiya, he didn't notice the distressed looks on the faces of the two young Kunoichis in the room.

"Hmm, if this man is truly as strong as you say he is, why did you not ask him to join Konoha as an ally, we both obviously have animosity against Orochimaru, this shinobi could be very valuable to us," asked Tsunade, it wasn't like they had enough allies, only Suna had formed an alliance and that too only because of Naruto's actions four years ago.

"Because he is a member of the Akatsuki," said Neji flatly. That statement was followed by a short and awkward pause and then Tsunade nodded and rubbed her temples. The Akatsuki had very good reason to want Orochimaru dead, he knew too many of their secrets, if they did not get rid of him, that snake could strike back on them.

"So the Akatsuki was aiding us simply to get to Orochimaru and finish him off without too much hassle. That makes sense, but that is not their way. They are usually too aloof and they take a lot of care to not appear in public if they can help it, I wonder if this means that they are going to be more forthcoming from now on," said Jiraiya, effectively raising the tension in the room.

"Well all of you are dismissed. Kakashi, I want an official report of this tomorrow and Sakura, I want you at the hospital, there is an operation that needs to be done as soon as possible," ordered Tsunade before letting out a weary sigh. Everyone slowly filed out of the room except for the masked Shinobi, who hadn't budged from his spot. Tsunade looked at him with a raised eyebrow before asking "What is it Kakashi?"

"Hokage-sama, Jiraiya-sama, I know this will sound a little strange, but I have a feeling that the masked Shinobi that helped us was…Naruto," Kakashi immediately backed up three paces when he got an icy look from the Hokage and strong glare from the white haired Sannin, the muscles on his jaw bunched in a grimace.

"And what makes you say that?" asked Jiraiya stonily.

"Well his eyes, the same exact sparkling blue as Naruto's, even his voice sounded like an older version of what Naruto's voice would have been. Other than that, the only indication was that he used what I would call a form of…Hiraishin when he was fighting Kabuto and Sasuke at the same time," Kakashi looked at the faces of the two Sannins in the room, they were both wondering if there could be a chance that Naruto had survived his fight with Sasuke.

"So are you saying that he was captured by the Akatsuki before you got there?" asked Jiraiya, which was the only possible explanation he could come up with.

"That is the only explanation; Itachi and Kisame were in Fire country when this happened so they were the ones that likely captured him after Sasuke defeated him to join up with Orochimaru." Kakashi stopped and shamefully lowered his head. If he had not neglected team seven's training like he did when they first became a genin team, Naruto would have become far stronger than Sasuke after the Chuunin exams, and he would have succeeded. Heck, the boy had taken down a jinchuuriki with full control of his powers when he himself hadn't even realized what he was capable of with a beast as strong as the Kyuubi inside of him.

"But he wouldn't have joined them. If anything he would probably be dead because they would suck the Kyuubi out of him. I have seen it before during the Third Ninja world war when they sucked the Yonbi out of his jinchuuriki, the man died seconds after," said Tsunade and Jiraiya nodded, he was also there along with Orochimaru and had witnessed the brutality with which the jinchuuriki of the Yonbi was killed that day.

"And what about him using the Hiraishin, that can only be used by a Namikaze right?" asked Kakashi, and they all knew that Naruto was the last remaining Namikaze, and the only one before him was Minato.

"Yes, but how can you be sure that he used the Hiraishin, did you see him use a three pronged Kunai?" asked Jiraiya, already knowing the answer to that.

"No," said Kakashi but he was already thinking back to what he knew about his mentor's jutsu. "But Minato-sensei had said that the technique was incomplete, if he had completed Hiraishin then he wouldn't have needed those kunais at all, I am sure that Naruto must have figured out the flaw on the seal and fixed it." Kakashi knew it sounded about as farfetched as it could get, Naruto was everything but he was no genius. To be able to do something that not even the Yondaime could? Something like that cannot be expected of anyone, much less Naruto, but that teleportation technique had looked so real.

"Kakashi do you have any idea what you are implying?" asked Jiraiya, he had selected Naruto because that boy was very unlike his father in personality. Minato was a star student, but that was because his brains ran years beyond his age. His ability to understand a technique on the fundamental level and master it took no more than a few hours at most, there was no fun in teaching Minato anything because a few days later the blonde's understanding of a jutsu would be better than the person who taught him the jutsu in the first place. On the other hand, Naruto's true talents lied in perseverance through hard work. Learning the Rasengan was the proof of that. If you gave Naruto a technique, he would learn to do it no matter how impossible it seemed, but to master it and understand how the jutsu worked, that would take him much more time.

"I am well aware that what I am trying to say sounds unbelievable, especially for someone like Naruto. But do think about what happened in the Namikaze mansion three years ago. There was a break-in and the only scrolls that were stolen were the ones about advancing the Rasengan, the Hiraishin techniques, and Kushina Nee-san's father's diaries that had all the advanced sealing techniques of the Uzumaki clan. The two scrolls and the four diaries were the only things that were about jutsus, not the ones about the village's secrets or the ones that talked about the vast fortune of the Namikaze and Uzumaki clans," said Kakashi. "And all of those items had blood seals on them." Kakashi could see that his argument had hit home as both the Sannins stared at him with slack jaws. Finally Jiraiya found his voice and spoke once again.

"We are not even sure if the break in was done by the Akatsuki or not," said Jiraiya, sounding like he had already given up on the argument.

"But there were many reports of two Akatsukis heading towards Konoha to confirm that it was only them who had the skills to bypass the security of the Namikaze compound," retorted the one eyed Shinobi, this was the first time that he had gotten this close to winning an argument with either of the Sannins, much less both of them, he was starting to enjoy this.

"And any experienced seal master will be able to break a blood seal," said Tsunade, nearly bringing the discussion to a close.

"And how many seal masters are there left?" asked Kakashi, the last known Fuuinjutsu masters were Kushina and Minato because he had lived in whirlpool for quite a while when he was very young. The red-headed Kunoichi had taught everything she knew about seals to Jiraiya, who in turn had taught Kakashi a few things himself.

"Itachi," he replied simply, the boy was a master at everything just like the Yondaime Hokage. He never really knew what happened, Itachi was a fine apprentice of Minato, and he worshipped the ground that the Namikaze walked on. But a year before Naruto's birth, they had a falling out. The argument was long and both master and student had been inside the Hokage's office for more than sixteen hours before Itachi left for a month long mission. After that they had never spoken to each other directly again. Kakashi nodded but he did not look convinced, he bowed stiffly before walking out of the office silently closing the door behind him.

"Jiraiya is any of that possible?" asked Tsunade, she was intently staring at the desk in front of her.

"My mind says no, but trust me hime I wanted to believe every word that came out of Kakashi's mouth," he said as he gently placed an arm on Tsunade's shoulder.

_ONE WEEK LATER IN AMEGAKURE_

Naruto regained consciousness and immediately realized that he was back in his room in the tower of Amegakure. He also noticed the presence of Pain, Konan, and Deidara, so instead of letting them know that he was awake, he just kept acting like he was still out, keeping his breathing controlled and his ears open.

"…was most unexpected of him. He has never failed on any mission that we have given him so far what was the cause of this?" asked Pain, in his deep and somber voice, the man really needed lessons on how to be friendly and social.

"It was probably because he saw his old friends after a long time hnn," replied Deidara as he moved away from the wall and closer to the bed where Naruto was sleeping. "The effects of paralysis should be over in a day or two, the fox's healing powers and his insane stamina should help his recovery, but usually this would have taken a month or more for us."

"Hmm, I have to talk to him about this," muttered Pain, audibly enough.

"Oh come on Nagato, this was his first miss, cut him some slack," said Konan. She had been a good influence on Naruto's life other than Itachi. She took care of him when he was injured and lightened his mood whenever he felt down, she was like the older sibling that he did not have at Konoha. Itachi was his mentor in everything, starting from the way of the Shinobi to the way of etiquette teaching him anything and everything necessary for him to become a spy as was ordered by Pain. Kisame and Deidara were his prankster buddies, although Kisame was also his tai jutsu trainer along with Sasori, and they were a rough pair of trainers. Pain was his master; he taught Naruto the way of the world, he had showed Naruto why he wanted peace and why a true peace was unachievable in a world that was based on power and corrupt politics. Naruto did not believe Pain, but arguing with Pain was pointless because he had that unanswerable question. The blonde teen never really understood Tobi, but he knew that the appearance he put up of a loser was false. The ones that he really disliked were Hidan and Kakuzu. They pissed him off to no end with their needless bloodlust and brutality, if he got one shot, he would have no hesitation in taking them out. The duo knew it and made sure that they stayed out of the blonde's way.

"I understand Konan, but you also have to realize that he is one of the strongest members of our organization and our ace in the battle for peace. This kind of failures cannot be tolerated from someone who is going to lead the war in the direction we want it to take," said Pain, his emotionless voice always made it hard for Naruto to take him seriously for more than a few minutes, and he snorted making it obvious that he was conscious.

"Naruto you baka," said Konan with a small smile as she slapped his head lightly.

"Call me what you want Kon Nee-san you know I can never take him seriously when he uses that voice," said Naruto sitting up and the covers fell off as he smoothly got out of the bed and gave a bow to Pain before finding a simple t-shirt on a chair and putting it on.

"Deidara, please inform Kisame and Itachi that Naruto is back to full health, he can resume his training from today," ordered Pain. Deidara nodded and hurried off with a maniacal smile playing on his face; oh the blonde was going to be sore today. Naruto groaned dramatically making puppy dog eyes at Konan but she just shook her head saying that Pain was quite angry at him and this time she could do nothing to help him.

"Pain-sensei, what do you want me to do?" asked Naruto getting serious.

"Your next mission is to go to Konoha," said Pain, making both Naruto and Konan look at him with wide eyes. "From the day you depart you are no longer an Akatsuki, but a shinobi of Konoha. You will return to your village and work for the Hokage. You will fight us and you will earn their respect and trust once again. We will call for you once again when the time is right and once we do you will rise in front of the world as our vessel and fulfill your destiny as the our champion," Pain's orders left Naruto's mind reeling, this was not a part of the plan. Why was he kept in the dark about something like this? He knew he was not ready to go back to Konoha so early. What was he going to do? Panic started to set in but he appeared as calm as possible to the rest of the people in the room. "In one month, you will leave so get ready and pack everything, you will not be returning to this base in a long time," Nagato said and Naruto detected a hint of sadness in the man's voice but he already striding out of the room. He looked at his older sister figure and she could see the lost child look that he gave her.

"Naruto," she said softly as she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and was shocked when she realized that it was shaking. "What's wrong?" she asked immediately alarmed. When the blonde just shook his head and looked away, she realized that he was actually shaking from fear. "Naruto look at me?" she demanded sternly and when the boy turned his face to look at her, she could see the deep turmoil that was going on inside him. "What is wrong, you will be going back to the village that you love so much? Why are you afraid?" she asked in a much gentler tone, holding the boy's chin up so he looked at her directly.

"I…I don't want to go, at least not yet. I know I am not ready to face them, what if I am too weak? What if I break and my emotions take over?" asked Naruto, his voice cracked several times as he was overcome with emotion.

"Naruto, I don't know about the rest of the people here but I have known you through your emotions and companionship, not through your training as a Shinobi. If there is one thing that is remarkable about you is your ability to hide your true strength and keeping up a façade that fooled many shinobis in your village and this village alike. I know that this will be hard, but I also know you, and you never back down from a mission no matter where you are, what you are facing, or what your odds are against winning," said Konan proudly, still looking at his blue eyes with certainty and confidence. The young man's face broke into a sad smile as he looked at his sister and a little calm returned to him.

In a sudden movement the blonde hugged her tightly and muttered a very soft "Thank you," in her ear. She held him for what seemed like minutes, and realized he had fallen asleep again as his breathing evened out and his head drooped on her shoulder. She slowly set her brother back in bed, and pulled the covers over him before going out to look for Kisame, there will be no training for Naruto today, not if she had anything to say about it!

_IN KONOHA_

It has been nearly five weeks since Sakura has returned from her mission after seeing Sasuke and many things were being spoken about this, not only among the Shinobis but also among the civilians. Gossips ran rampant in the village and she had way more visitors at her hospital now because they wanted to know about their 'Sasuke-kun'. She had ordered her assistant at the hospital to stop any visitor unless it was for an emergency. Tsunade had asked Shizune to do the same but had to add foreign dignitaries and messengers in her group too. Hinata and Ino were mostly saved from this because Ino worked in the interrogation department, a place that the civilians avoided as much as possible, and Hinata mostly spent her time either training at the Hyuuga compound, which was strictly off limits to the civilians, or doing missions out of Konoha. Still they were pestered by civilians whenever they were seen out of their respective niches.

Sakura tapped her feet impatiently as she waited for her blonde friend as they were supposed to have lunch together and catch up on the missions that Ino had been on or interrogations that she had done since the whole Sasuke retrieval failure. Why was it that Sasuke always managed to get away from them even after they practically had him in their grasp? Her wonderings stopped when Ino came at her sprinting full speed, grabbed her hand roughly and took off again, not bothering to tell her why they were running. "What's the hurry?" shouted Sakura as she followed her blonde friend now she had caught up with Ino.

"Let's just go to the flower shop so we can talk and stuff, mom has cooked lunch for the both of us," said Ino and took a sharp left into the alley behind which her house and shop was. Sakura knew the way well enough from here as she and Ino used to sneak into the Yamanaka residence for years using this same back alley. The finally reached the back of the house and jumped into Ino's room through the window in the second floor. The both sat down on the breath as they were a little winded from their run from the hospital all the way to the shop. "Will you tell me what's going on?" asked Sakura after she had regained her breath.

"I barely got out after a night long session with a missing Nin from the lightning country when I saw six ladies waiting with their mothers to talk to me about you know who. I took one look at them and took off; I had no wish to talk about him after having a frustrating night with Anko," said Ino as she kicked off her sandals and went to the sink to wash her face and hands.

"Oh yeah, what have you been up to these last few weeks, I didn't even see you since the mission?" asked Sakura, shrugging off her medical jacket.

"I had one interrogation after another; there has been an influx in the number of missing Nins in the last few months. We have caught six alone after coming back! You know the record says that we caught one or two every few months, and most of them talked just after taking a good look at Anko or Ibiki," said Ino as she wiped her face and moved away from the sink so Sakura could use it.

"Six missing nins in a month! Are any of them from Konoha?" asked the pink haired Kunoichi astonished as she washed her face and hands and quickly dried them off before they got chilly.

"No, none are from Konoha. Dad has been doing overtime with the mind-walk, I don't think I have even seen him in the last few weeks," said Ino as she opened the door to her room to get to the kitchen downstairs. Sakura followed, the delicious smell of home cooked food assaulted her nose and reminded her how hungry she was. As she reached the kitchen, she saw Mrs. Yamanaka humming a tune as she was reading a magazine.

"Hello Mrs. Yamanaka," said Sakura with a small smile, and the woman closed her magazine; her eyes sparkled when she saw the daughter of her best friend.

"Hello Sakura, God it has been forever since I last saw you," she said as she came over and hugged the pink haired girl. "Well I will leave you girls to yourselves, you two probably have a lot to catch up on," she said before walking up the stairs to her bedroom.

"Man, mom has cooked everything that we like. This lunch is going to be good," said Ino as she pulled out a couple plates and handed one to Sakura. She quickly piled her plate with everything ans sat on the dining table, waiting for Sakura to join her. "So, seen any patients that you like yet?" asked Ino in a mischievous tone as she took a bite out of the chicken casserole.

"Really Ino, you are going to bring that up right now?" asked Sakura in an exasperated voice as she sat down across from her friend and took a huge mouthful of food. "Oh my gosh, I forgot how good a cook your mom was!" exclaimed Sakura after her first bite.

"Yes forehead, I am going to bring that up right now," said Ino and put her fork down.

"Fine Ino-pig," retorted Sakura.

"Did you see any cute guys at the hospital or not, come in please tell," begged Ino in a sweeter than necessary voice.

"Hey you know I am working in the pediatric ward, I get to see kids not teen," said Sakura as she picked her fork back up.

"That is true, hey do you think any of the guys from our generation looks good?" asked Ino absentmindedly as she ate her food.

"Hmm, actually now that you mention it, yeah!' Sakura exclaimed the last part as if realizing this for the first time.

"Whoa, really? Who?" asked Ino her food forgotten in her curiosity.

"Hey, you get to see them as often as I do, you should be able to tell," said Sakura with a mischievous smirk on her face.

"Well let's see…Shika's booked. Actually Neji is quite the looker no? But he is with Tenten darn," said Ino as she put some more food in her mouth.

"Kiba turned out to be quite a catch too," said Sakura. It was true, the Inuzuka heir had turned out to be quite good looking, and years of physical exercise and sports had given him a very pleasing build.

"But he is dating Hinata, lucky her!" pointed out Ino in a defeated tone, it doesn't look like any good looking guys were available for them after all.

"Hmm, Choji's also nice," said Sakura after a little pause in their conversation.

"Huh?" asked Ino as she cocked her head to one side.

"Well after he started training under Gai, he practically lost all his fat, and I saw him wrestling with Kiba the other day and his muscles are just gorgeous!" laughed Sakura when she saw Ino's eyes were about to fall off their sockets.

"Yeah you are right! And he looks quite good with that short hair too," said Ino as she thought about the new Choji, he was also funny and caring, not bothersome like when they were younger either. "Man, even he turned out to be quite a catch huh?"

"That he did," agreed Sakura readily, not overlooking the little blush that had formed on Ino's cheeks. "Man, she totally digs him," thought the pink haired medic as she grinned, maybe with a little nudge Ino could be moved in the right direction, and it was no secret that Choji had a crush on Ino since their earliest days at the Academy.

"Sakura, can I ask you something?" asked the blonde after a little while.

"Hmm, what is it?"

"Do you still like Sasuke?" asked Ino, it was so sudden that Sakura was caught completely off guard.

"W-why do you ask?" stuttered the medic.

"Because if you still do, I don't think it can ever happen," said Ino, she used to hope that Sasuke would come back too but after hearing what he did in the mission it was obvious that he had gone too far down the wrong end of the road to come back.

"Uh, can you be anymore vague?" asked Sakura with a raised eye brow.

"What I mean is if you still want to be with Sasuke, you should give up because he is not coming back. At first even I did not want to listen to Shika and Choji but now that I have seen what he can do and what he did I know they aren't wrong about Sasuke. The Sasuke we thought we knew was a fake, it was made up by us in our imaginations, nobody really knew what Sasuke was like inside because none of us actually dated him or got close to him, we all made up the perfect man in our imagination," Ino could see that her words were striking cords in Sakura's brain and heart with each word that she was saying.

"B-but it's not like I want to date him or something anymore, I want to know what happened?" cut in Sakura, because of Sasuke's actions Team Seven was completely destroyed. Did Sasuke kill Naruto? Did something other than that happen to him? There was a huge uproar in the council, but the villagers did not seem all that bothered about it.

"Sakura I don't get you, one minute you say that you still like him and the next minute you say that you don't? Make up your mind!" snapped Ino getting a little frustrated herself with Sakura's vague answers.

"Okay, I wanted to go on this mission because I wanted to bring Sasuke back, but it wasn't because I still like him, it was because I wanted to know what happened that day at the Valley of end when Sasuke fought and then left," said Sakura finally making Ino see why Sakura still seemed obsessed with the traitor when she was worried all this time about her other teammate.

"So you still think about Naruto huh?" asked Ino, but this time it wasn't a jab.

"I just wish I knew what happened to him," said Sakura without really thinking what she was saying. This was the first time she had said it to anyone that she also cared for her blonde teammate more than she cared to admit.

"Do you think he would have been hot?" asked Ino, her mischievous little smile was back on her face but Sakura failed to see it as she was still thinking about the hyperactive blonde.

"Yeah probably," muttered the medic, her thoughts focused somewhere else.

"I KNEW IT!" shouted Ino as she jumped up in glee, startling Sakura out of her musings.

"Knew what?" asked the medic, her emerald eyes wide as she started at Ino face completely lost.

"That you like Naruto! KYAA-HA-HA-HA," laughed the blonde maniacally as she ran, with the furious pink haired woman right in tow. 'Whatever gave her than notion' thought Sakura as she sprinted up the stairs after her friend.

_IN THE HOKAGE'S OFFICE_

"Tsunade-sama, I am going to be going over to the registration office in the academy to turn in the new submissions for the next year's entering group of students. I need the next set of C-rank mission papers signed when I come back; fortunately there are three teams ready to depart immediately," said Shizune as she picked up the thick folder containing the information that she needed to give to the registration office, and dropped a new stack of papers that the Hokage needed to sign.

"Fine fine," grumbled Tsunade as she sat straighter in her seat and took the first folder off the stack. A cloaked figure silently walked into the room and waited patiently for the Hokage to notice his presence. When the Godaime Hokage failed to do so for the next ten minutes, one of the ANBU in her room came forward from the shadows and tapped her on the shoulder. "What?" she asked still looking intently at the folder she had been reading. The ANBU pointed at the figure standing there quietly, since he was obviously not a threat to the Hokage, the ANBU had not deemed it necessary to take action on this mysterious figure. Finally Tsunade noticed a cloaked man standing across the desk from her, not making a sound and not moving a muscle.

"Who are you?" asked Tsunade, a little suspiciously; these Akatsukis had pulled a stunt like that before by coming into the village, what if this was an attempt on her life?

The man threw the cowl of the cloak back as asked "Did you forget me already Baa-chan?"

**Mwahahaha, I do have a knack for cliffhangers don't I? I hope you like the twist in the series; I mean it would have been pretty boring if Naruto stayed away from his friends from too long now wouldn't it? Anyway, the people who are following my other story 'Rise of a New Legend', I am taking a break from that so that I can write more of this story. I will get back to that in due time, no worries I am not leaving any of my fics hanging. So if you want to discuss this story in more details just shoot me a P.M. and don't forget to review. **

**The poll still stands: Do you want Naruto to use Kubiriki Bocho or not?**

**Thanks, **

**Tanneal. **


	4. A New Beginning

**A New Beginning**

Naruto was standing there with a typical 'Naruto' grin on his face. Even though Tsunade wanted to leap across the room and hug the blonde, she knew better than to just trust people by their appearances. She had been cheated too many times and deceived too much to be as naïve as she was when she had gone on the mission where Dan had died. Her brows furrowed as she slowly stood up and shot a chakra pulse towards the blonde, realizing that at least he wasn't one of Orochimaru's zombies, brought to life through Edo-Tensei. "Okay, if you are Naruto then you should know the answers to the questions I am about to ask you," said Tsunade in a hard tone, she was not taking any chances with something like this. She saw the smile falter from the blonde's face across from her, but he nodded as if he understood why she was doing this.

"Where did we first meet and what was the first object that you received from me?" asked Tsunade, she knew that only three people other than her knew the answer to these questions.

"Oh yeah I first met you in a bar, oh and the first thing you gave me," he paused and pulled a chain off his neck, on it was dangling the green stoned locket from the first Hokage's necklace. Tsunade did not need to check it to know that it was the real one but was quite surprised to find it on him.

"You are not the real Naruto are you?" asked Tsunade, her anger rising with each second. They had found the necklace in the valley of the end. She had thrown it out the window of the Hokage tower that day, because she did not want to keep the accursed necklace with her anymore.

"Whoa, whoa Baa-chan hold on a minute," said Naruto shaking his hands frantically, he still remembered how much Tsunade's finger flick hurt, it wouldn't do to have her attack him when she was this angry. "When I was in a village in Kumo, I came across this in a pawn-shop. At first I thought it was a fake, but knew it was the real deal when I did a closer inspection," said Naruto but that did not do much to calm the Hokage down.

"What was the first bet that we made?"

"Ooh, ha ha you lost that bet didn't ya?" said Naruto with a foxy smile on his face. Tsunade's face turned a little red but she didn't back down.

"What was it Gaki?" shouted the Godaime Hokage, she was still frustrated that a small genin had been able to beat her, man her luck really did suck!

"That if I did not master the Rasengan in a week you would take all the money I had in gama-chan, and if I did you would give me the Shodaime's necklace," answered the blonde jinchuuriki without any hesitation.

"Tell Shizune that I will be back in a few minutes," ordered Tsunade to one of the ANBU present in the room and then jumped over her desk, grabbed Naruto's cowl and they disappeared from the office via sushin. They appeared on top of the Hokage Mountain and Tsunade let go of the blonde's cowl and the bearer immediately collapsed on the ground. After a few seconds when Naruto regained his breath he slowly got back to his feet.

"Can you tell me what I did to deserve that treatment?" asked Naruto, a little wary of Tsunade. Maybe she still did not believe that he was actually Naruto. The only answer he got was one of Godaime Hokage's infamous haymakers to his chest. To Tsunade's surprise the blonde slid back a couple feet but other than that he showed no sign that the chakra enhanced punch had done much physical harm to him.

"Look Baa-chan, if you wanted a spar all you had to do was ask," said Naruto getting irritated with the woman he considered close family, this was supposed to be a happy reunion, not a 'beat down Naruto' occasion.

"How could you do this to us?" asked Tsunade through gritted teeth as she tried to hit the jinchuuriki with another haymaker. Naruto dodged, as a look of confusion crossed his face.

"What are you talking about?" Naruto asked, not wanting to continue this fight. Even though he hadn't shown it, he was sure that his rib cage was cracked from the direct hit he took from her.

"You left us joined the Akatsuki, and now come back hoping to get accepted just like that?" asked Tsunade, readying herself for another charge.

"Hey you haven't even heard my side of the story!" protested Naruto loudly as he pointed an accusing finger at Tsunade. That did it, the Hokage charged at the blonde jinchuuriki, and was about to send him flying when she suddenly found herself on her knees. Her arms were held in a strong grip behind her head and a calm voice whispered in her ears. "Stand down." The weight of command and certainty was so great in those two words that it sent a shiver down Tsunade's spine. The blonde Hokage finally went limp in his hands and Naruto saw the tears falling on the ground from her bowed head. He sighed and let go of her hands, but before she fell to the ground, he wrapped an arm around her stomach and pulled her back up to a standing position.

As soon as he let go of Tsunade, she turned around and hugged him tightly, burying her face on his chest as she cried, letting all the grief and frustration that she had been holding back for so long out. Finally, the person whom she had considered family and the one she had trusted in her life after being alone for so many decades, was back. "Naruto really never goes back on his word does he?" thought the Hokage as she finally let go of the teen and did a quick summon to one of her slugs. "Go find Jiraiya, wherever he may be and tell him to meet me here as soon as possible." The summoned slug bowed to her; at least it looked like a bow, before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Tsunade turned back around and for the first time took a good look at the young man before her. Though the heavy winter cloak covered most of his body, he had a very tall frame. As tall as Kakashi, maybe even Jiraiya. He had maintained the same old haircut, but had left it a little bit longer which looked quite unruly without the head band holding it back in place. His bright blue eyes that once held the mischievous glint of a prankster was the same, but there was also sense of cool confidence and quiet strength about him, experience as a shinobi spoke for itself. The way he stood, it showed that he was well aware of the things around him, like a coiled spring ready for any kind of danger at all times. "So Baa-chan, what will you have me do now?" asked the blonde to the Hokage with raised eye brows. "I am sure the council will have a say in this though," muttered the blonde teen in an annoyed voice, but it wasn't unheard by Tsunade.

"I don't think I want the council to know that Konoha's jinchuuriki has returned yet," said Tsunade, she was thinking hard trying to come up with a plan so that the council cannot effect Naruto's life like they did in the past. Naruto's eyes grew wide at that, there was no way the village leader could keep the presence of the village's jinchuuriki Hokage from its council.

"Why did you summon me here hime?" asked a voice that Naruto recognized immediately. "And who is that?" The toad sage was pointing at the cloaked man since all he could see was the back of the tall man.

"Ehhh, you too? It looks like everybody forgot about me!" griped Naruto as he turned to face the white haired Sannin and pointed his right index finger at him.

"W-wha…how…Naruto?" sputtered Jiraiya, seeing Naruto face to face after so long.

"That's right Ero-Sannin I am back!" exclaimed Naruto before flashing his trademark smile at the toad sage.

"Have you checked?" he asked to Tsunade, though he was pretty sure that she did. The Senju nodded.

"He answered all the questions I asked correctly, you can ask him your questions," said the blonde Sannin before sitting down quietly on one of the boulders, enjoying the presence of two of her most important people in the world.

"Alright, when and how did we first meet each other?" asked the Toad Sage in a serious voice.

"By the hot springs where Ebisu-san was trying to teach me the water-walking exercise and you were peaking and doing your so called 'research'." Naruto said smirking as he noticed the small tick mark that appeared on Tsunade's forehead.

"Alright whom did you have a crush on before you left the village?" asked Jiraiya, this time he was the one with a smirk. Tsunade's eyes flew open; she did not know anything about the blonde's love life, albeit the fact that he left when he was only thirteen. Naruto had a very red face but he knew that Jiraiya was probably spying on him when he had went to give Sakura a hug before the hermit nearly dropped him to his death down a gorge.

"Sakura," said the blonde before looking down, trying to hide the blush on his face from the other two. Jiraiya nodded before turning back to Tsunade.

"So how do you plan on keeping him off the Council's eyes?" Naruto's interest also piqued as he came over to stand beside Jiraiya wanting to know how she planned on keeping the cronies off his back.

"Simple, he joins my ANBU. If that happens, then I can keep his records sealed and under my command and no one will be any wiser," said Tsunade, she had finally figured out a plan, Naruto was going to hide in plain sight.

"Yeah, and what about the rest of his life, how will he do his groceries and how in Kami's name are you going to keep his identity from his friends?" asked Jiraiya not really sure how Tsunade was planning to keep his existence hidden from the rest of the village.

"He is going to have to keep his mask on at all times, but there will be a select few people who will know that he is back other than just the three of us, but they will swear an oath to secrecy to me until I deem it otherwise," said Tsunade, the voice of command back in her tone. "Let's head back to my office or else Shizune will have a heart attack," said the Hokage and all three of them went back to her office, Naruto's cowl back in place. As soon as they were in back in the Hokage's office, Tsunade closed the door and activated the seals so that nobody could hear or see what was going on in the office. She also made the ANBU in her office swear an oath of secrecy about Naruto's return.

"Well boy what can you do?" asked Jiraiya, sitting down in one of the chairs in the office. He was quite surprised that the twelve year old runt that he remembered had turned out to be this tall and handsome, if not a little rugged, man.

"What you mean Ero-Sannin?' asked Naruto clueless as he looked at his old mentor with a confused expression.

"What he means is how strong are you and what skills you have as a Shinobi?" clarified Tsunade as she also took her seat at the Hokage's seat.

"Oh, right." Naruto thought a little before continuing. "Well, they figured out that I had a talent in tai-jutsu. So they gave me some really hard and extreme training with gravity seals. Once I could beat them, they also gave me kenjutsu training. I am pretty good at understanding Fuuinjutsu too, so I got an extensive learning in that field as well. What I personally wanted to learn was Ninjutsu, so when they gave me jutsus I didn't give up until I had them down, and I also learned a really good method of learning everything fast because I am able to create hundreds of clones without any problems."

Jiraiya's eyes grew wide at that, it was simple yet genius! Why had he not thought of that when he took on Naruto as a student, he could have taught a lot more to him in very little time, he might have even made Naruto stronger than that Uchiha brat by the time they had their throw down in the Valley of End? "When did they figure it out that they could accelerate your training a few hundred times with the shadow clones?" asked Jiraiya already dreading the answer.

"Umm, oh yeah Itachi came up with that after he saw me make like three hundred clones when Kisame and I were training and the fish-man told me to go at him with everything I had. Itachi's training schedule for me really helped because in two years they said that I went from low Chuunin level to high Jounin (Both Tsunade and Jiraiya sweat dropped at that)," the Jinchuuriki said as he also pulled a char out and sat down.

"So what have you been doing for the next two years?" asked Tsunade, if Naruto had been able to escape the Akatsuki then they must be hunting it down right now.

"Well they made me do some covert missions, but most of the time they had been training me how to control the fox," said Naruto as a brief silence descended on the room.

"And have you been able to control it yet?" asked Jiraiya, they had no idea just how powerful a jinchuuriki was if had had full control over a bijuu as strong as the Kyuubi.

"No, I don't have full control but I can use up to five tails without losing control over my emotions and rage, I have been trying to tackle the sixth tail but my seal does not allow me, I think I have to takes the seal off completely and face him down before he will let me have full access to his power," said Naruto, he did not miss the facts that the two Sannins went really pale when he said he would have to take the seal off. He was quite amused inside; maybe they did not know the full purpose of the seal yet.

"And what of the Akatsuki, I am pretty sure they are hunting down every place in the five elemental nations trying to find where you are. It won't be long before they reach Konoha, how do I handle that?" asked Tsunade, whenever Naruto was concerned, things never turned out simple.

"Oh I am pretty sure that they are looking for me but don't worry about them showing up in Konoha anytime soon, they are focusing their attention on the other jinchuurikis for now," said Naruto but he knew well enough that Pain was going for Gaara, how was he going to stop that?

"Ah that is important information, you need to tell this to the Kazekage as soon as possible," said Jiraiya and Tsunade nodded, this also meant that the Akatsuki will be mobilizing their forces openly from now. There was a light knock on the door and Naruto moved away from the chair he was sitting on towards a corner of the room.

"Come in," called Tsunade and the door opened. Naruto found it a little hard to breath in the heavy winter cloak when he saw who it was that entered the room.

"Hokage-sama here is the medical report from the most recent operation that we did on the Chakra coils reconstruction. By my calculations if we make the changes I suggested the success of this kind of operations will go up by sixteen percent, making it a seventy eight success rate," said the pink haired apprentice of the Godaime Hokage. Tsunade nodded, as she took a quick side long glance at the stiff looking jinchuuriki in the corner of the room. She was wearing a sleeveless pink top that went down to her mid thighs but were cut from the sides for more mobility. Instead of shorts, like Naruto remembered, she had tight leather pants that hugged her curves, only accentuating them, instead of covering those parts. Metal plated guards adorned her knees and elbows and her forearms were armored with leather gloves and had plating on them.

"Thank you Sakura, I will look at these files and get back to you on the changes that you made as soon as possible," replied the blonde medic with a nod as she put the folder on top of her other documents.

"Hokage-sama will there be training this evening?" asked Sakura, it has been a few days since she had been able to spar with Tsunade. The Hokage had already told her that there wasn't much more that she could teach Sakura; all that was left was to gain experience and get stronger through training, but she still liked having the spars with her shisou.

"No Sakura I am afraid not, maybe you could train with Team Ten or Eight. Both Asuma and Kurenai say that your progress has been amazing," said Tsunade making Sakura blush a little but she still looked crestfallen that she wouldn't be getting to spar with teacher today. She bowed to the two Sannin quickly before walking out closing the door behind her lightly. Jiraiya chuckled a little when he saw the stiffness with which Naruto stood there staring at the closed door.

"Naruto…NARUTO!" shouted Tsunade making the blonde jinchuuriki jump a little startled.

"Sorry Baa-chan, I think I fell asleep," Naruto said, trying to sound witty.

"More like dreaming fantasies," muttered the Hokage but refrained from commenting on it.

"So what's up with the people from my class?" asked Naruto, he was still interested in seeing how they turned out, even though he couldn't reveal his identity to them.

"Well they turned out to be one of the strongest from this generation," said Jiraiya with a small chuckle. Tsunade opened one of the drawers on her desk and rummaged through it before looking at Naruto.

"What ANBU mask do you want boy?" she asked still looking around the drawer. "I got the Rat, the Hippo, and…the Fox," Tsunade found a really old fashioned and unadorned mask. Not the ones that they made nowadays, which looked more like a fashion accessory rather than something that one would use to hide their identities. It had a feral and deadly look on it, one of the original beast masks made for the ANBU.

"I will take the Fox," said Naruto nonchalantly as he held out his hand and Tsunade tossed him the mask. "Ironic," thought the jinchuuriki as he put it on. It was a perfect fit, almost like it was custom made for him. She also picked out a standard ANBU vest and tossed it to Naruto, who tossed it right back to her, making it land on her face.

"What the hell Gaki?" growled Tsunade, snatching it off her face which was scowling fiercely at the blonde in front of her.

"Baa-chan, I have been wearing orange jumpsuits for more than two-thirds of my life. Now that I do have a fashion sense, I would like to keep it," said Naruto, he shifted his mask to the right side of his head so that his face was visible.

"Oh yeah, and what fashion sense is that?" asked Tsunade with a sly smirk on her face. "Naruto and fashion never goes together, he wouldn't know fashion to save his life!" thought Tsunade sarcastically. Man was she wrong! Naruto just shrugged at her, pulled the clasp and let his heavy cloak fall off and Tsunade instantly turned a dark shade of pink.

Naruto was wearing a baggy black gi over a tight red t-shirt that did not do any injustice in showing off the bulging muscles underneath. His gi was also tied at the waist with a red sash. His pants were also the same black as his gi and were tucked into leather boots with steel plating. On his back was a large red circle with swirls, the symbol of the whirlpool country (think Goku's clothes and turn all the blue to red and all the orange to black including the boots). It suited his tall and muscular frame quite well. He looked at the blushing Tsunade with a satisfied smirk. "What were you saying Baa-chan?" he asked mischievously while raising an eyebrow.

"Lookin' dapper kid," commented Jiraiya with a chuckle seeing the dismay on Tsunade's faced.

"Oh just get out!" shouted Tsunade once she got over her surprise. Man who knew Naruto, the most unpredictable knucklehead, would turn out to be a looker?

"Where will I be living?" asked Naruto, he wanted to go and explore the village but he also had to find lodgings.

"In the tower until I find a suitable place for you to live, and you are not going back to that dilapidated apartment of yours," said Tsunade. She hated the place and the owner had the guts to ask her for money because he had allowed the 'demon' to live in his apartment for more than eight years. It wasn't enough that the drunk was taking thrice the rent to begin with? Naruto sharply pulled the mask back over his face, nodded to the two Sannins and…disappeared.

"Damn, the kid's gotten fast!" muttered Jiraiya as he stared the flapping curtains of the windows. "And he took my spot," growled the white haired Sannin when he realized that the window was his preferred way of getting about the Hokage tower. Tsunade chuckled, about time someone put that pervert back in his place.

"What do I do with him?" asked Tsunade as she sighed. She was quite happy to have him back but he was still much stronger than others his age, what will the council say if a powerhouse just appeared out of the blue in her ANBU.

"Well he is past the rank of a Jounin, I could make him a Sannin," said Jiraiya, thinking out loud.

"But?" asked Tsunade already knowing that one was coming up.

"He doesn't know sage mode!" replied Jiraiya, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"And how long will that take?' asked Tsunade, she didn't know how long it took Jiraiya or Minato but it was a lengthy process.

"Well it took Minato over a year to get it under control, so at least that long," said Jiraiya with a thoughtful expression.

"Okay then let's hold that off for a couple of years," said Tsunade, he just got back after four years, she didn't want Naruto gone for another year already.

"Fine but I will have to test his skills one way or another; I just cannot go by his word." Tsunade muttered as she pulled out a bottle of Sake and two cups.

"Hey wasn't that Minato's old ANBU mask that you handed him?" asked Jiraiya as he took a sip of the Sake that Tsunade had poured him.

"Hmm, don't know," said Tsunade with a shrug.

_STREETS OF KONOHA_

Naruto landed on the roof of a shop and heard the shopkeeper grumbling about meddling genins trying to scare away customers. He figured he should apologize and so he jumped off the roof and walked into the shop. It was empty except for the shopkeeper and a young man who was trying on the new hats that were on sale. As soon as the shopkeeper spotted the ANBU entering his shop, he stood up and bowed graciously. "Would you like to see the new hats in the market, sir?" he asked as he pointed towards the shelf with multicolored hats with many logos and symbols. It took the blonde a while to figure out why the shopkeeper was being so nice to him? Then it dawned on him that he was wearing an ANBU mask; the black ops were always treated with respect.

"No, I wanted to apologize for the roof, I had no idea you felt so inconvenient about shinobis using the roof of your store," said Naruto politely but it was a jab at the storekeeper nonetheless.

"No, no, not at all, you see sometimes the genins just like to mess with us shopkeepers, that is why I was just wondering if it was those mischief makers or not," said the shopkeeper apologetically. Man this mask was amazing, why did he not think of joining the ANBU when he was younger?

Naruto nodded and headed out, walking on the streets was one of the things that he never really liked when he was younger because of the constant looks he got from the villagers. It was a pleasant experience for Naruto walking on the streets where people backed away if they saw you coming or bowed to you in respect and admiration. Suddenly he heard loud and boisterous voices coming from the street up ahead. He looked up to see three Konoha shinobis, one had the Jounin vest on, one was wearing the standard ANBU uniform and the third one had an elegant red armor on. When they got a little closer to him, he recognized two of the three shinobis walking side by side. The one with the Jounin vest on was Shikamaru Nara, he had still maintained his pineapple top ponytail hairstyle, the one walking next to him in the ANBU uniform was Kiba, his mask was moved to the side of his head, and the one in the red armor was definitely an Akimichi, but he was the first Akimichi that Naruto could recall had an athletic build rather than their typical chubby ones. Akamaru was also there, he was following Kiba alertly, like an ever cautious friend. As they saw Naruto, Kiba raised his hand and beckoned him over.

Akamaru sniffed the blonde one and started barking excitedly as he pulled on Kiba's pants trying to tell him something. "Easy boy, I know that we probably met each other before. Calm down," said the Inuzuka as he knelt down to pet Akamaru on the back. "He does smell familiar though," thought Kiba but he couldn't remember where he had smelled the guy before; he sounded familiar too, like someone he hadn't met for a long time. "Hey are you in regular ANBU or in Root?" asked Kiba, but the answer was obvious since he did not have any tattoos on his arm.

"I am in the Hokage's personal squad," said Naruto making the three look at each other.

"Did you join today?" asked Shikamaru looking over the tall blonde man with the odd garments on. "Where is your uniform?"

"I didn't like the uniform, so the Hokage-sama let me wear whatever I wanted," said Naruto, smirking behind his mask. This will surely raise questions.

"So who are you?" asked Kiba, he knew almost everyone who was currently in the ANBU except for that Yamato guy, the man never ever took off his mask.

"You realize that there is a reason we wear these masks right?" asked Naruto, by formal rules, an ANBU should never reveal his identity in a public area to any other civilians and ninjas unless ordered by a higher ranking official.

"Yeah, you are definitely new to this job," said Kiba rolling his eyes.

"Do you wanna have lunch with us, we were just going to the Barbeque place on the next street," said the one wearing red armor. "Wait, he said barbeque, is that by any chance Choji?" thought Naruto to himself, only one way to find out.

"Yeah sure, I am free for a while," said Naruto nodding as he joined the trio walking towards their destination. As they walked into the restaurant Naruto stopped as he looked at the huge table filled with almost everyone he knew in Konoha. He had thought this would be a simple lunch with four of them, not their old class from the academy and the senseis. On the left was Team Eight where Kurenai was sitting across from Hinata and Shino. Next to Kurenai was Asuma who beckoned Shikamaru to join him across the table. Two seats over was Team Gai where Maito Gai and his clone Rock Lee were talking animatedly over something and Tenten looked just about ready to fall asleep. Kiba waved at Kurenai and went to sit beside Hinata. Choji and Shikamaru sat across from Asuma. Naruto looked around for a little bit before taking a seat in one of the empty tables next Tenten. He picked up the menu that was lying on the table when he heard a certain "Yo," coming from behind him. He did not need to turn around to know that a certain Cyclops had joined them.

"So who is this young man?" asked Kakashi as he took his seat next to Gai. Everybody seemed to notice Naruto for the first time and Asuma gave him a curious look.

"Must be a Yamanaka," he said as he looked at the spiky blonde hair sticking out in every direction.

"Stop making assumptions," said Kurenai slapping him on the arm lightly. "Are you a friend of Kiba?" she asked smiling lightly at Naruto.

"More or less," said Naruto. "I remember them from the academy but we were in different classes so I don't know them that well," lied the blonde. Even though he did not like it he knew he had to keep his identity from them.

"I see," so what squad of ANBU are you in?" asked Kakashi, he couldn't help but smile because he was sure he had a pretty good idea about who was behind the mask.

"I am in the Hokage's squad," said Naruto and all the Jounins in the table exchanged glances among each other. This was no ordinary ninja if he became a part of the Hokage's personal squad when he was only in his late teens.

"Hmm, very interesting," said Kakashi, loudly enough for all to hear, but in a low enough voice so that only Naruto could hear the slight inflections in his voice.

"Damn," thought the blonde jinchuuriki. "He figured out who I am! I have to tell Baa-chan about this."

"Asuma, Kurenai, Gai, Shikamaru, Shino, and Neji there is a message I have for all of you," said Kakashi and then paused to get all their attention, even Neji's as he sat down next to Tenten. "Hokage-sama wants to meet us in a couple hours." Kakashi finished, there wasn't anything uncommon about something like that but only the Jounins? That was a little odd but nobody wanted to raise questions involving their jobs when all of them were here to relax and have fun with their friends and senseis.

"Where is that blasted student of mine?" grumbled Asuma as he lost yet another match of Shogi to Shikamaru.

"All women are troublesome," said Shikamaru and instantly got hit by three killer intents which made him shut up.

"Mmm, who is the new guy," asked Ino as she walked in with Sakura stared openly at Naruto, who blushed a little at the compliment.

"Ino!" shouted Sakura shocked at her friend's rude behavior as she whacked her upside the head.

"Watch it forehead," warned Ino only to get retorted by Sakura.

"Well if you stopped behaving like a pig I will."

"Can't you two digest a meal without fighting?" asked Kurenai with an exasperated sigh. These two were best friends yet they constantly quarreled and argued like pre-teenagers.

"Nope!" they both replied simultaneously before breaking into giggles at their own antics. Kiba just shook his head as he looked at the two most immature, yet very capable Kunoichis, from their class.

"If those two didn't get boyfriends soon, they might just stay single for the rest of their lives," said Kiba sarcastically as he wrapped his arm around Hinata, making her turn tomato red. Naruto was afraid that she would pass out like before but she just took a few deep breaths and calmed down.

"Why don't the two of you take a seat so we can order our food?" asked Kakashi indicating to the two empty chairs on the exact same table at which sat Naruto.

"Yes," shouted Ino and jumped into the seat next to Naruto, so the one that Sakura sat on was right next to Lee's.

"So what's your name?" asked Ino in a sultry voice as she pressed her body against the blonde jinchuuriki's.

"Fox," said Naruto in a flat, emotionless voice making Ino sit down completely taken aback. Shikamaru, Neji, and Lee chuckled while Sakura and Kiba howled in laughter. Kiba even fell off his chair and started rolling on the floor, unable to control his amusement at the face that Ino had.

"Heh, stoicism has their charms after all eh?" said Asuma looking at the masked teen with an amused expression. Naruto just nodded, stoic worked for him, he had stopped being loud, obnoxious, and overexcited years now, and maturity was one of the things that he had learned through his experiences as a spy.

"What would your sirs and madams like to have today?" asked a waiter as he came over seeing that the whole group was here.

"Three dishes of Pork barbeque with extra sauce," said Choji as was predictable.

"I would like to have stir fired noodles with chicken," said Kiba, there was no one who liked chicken more that the Inuzuka heir.

"I will have the same as Kiba-kun," said Hinata in her timid but cute voice.

"I will have the lean cut chicken croissant with low fat yogurt to maintain my youthful figure," shouted Lee, and was congratulated heartily by his teacher much to the dismay of the others in the restaurant.

"I will have Stake Tartare," said Sakura after thinking for a minute with a finger on her chin.

"Can you please bring me a Miso soup with vegetables and beans?" asked Kurenai and the waiter wrote her order down as well with a smile.

"I will have a Beef Negimaki," said Asuma as he put an arm around his sweetheart.

"I would like a Saigon Chicken Salad," said Kakashi before looking at Ino who was still sitting there silently, she had not uttered a word after her surprise at the masked boy's response.

"Oi, Ino are you going to order anything?" asked Sakura loudly, bringing the blonde Yamanaka out from her thoughts.

"Huh? O-oh yeah! I want a crispy Rocky Shrimp with extra mushrooms please," said Ino back in her cheerful voice.

"I will have the same thing that my youthful rival has ordered!" shouted Gai when the waiter had turned towards him.

"And you sir?" asked the waiter as he looked curiously at the masked man that had sat through this whole exchange without saying a word.

"I would like a large Chicken Salad with Shiitake mushrooms and extra greens," said the blonde in a curt voice. Kakashi's jaw hit the floor; did the world's number one fan and lover of Ramen just order a salad?

"So Fox, how long have you been in ANBU?" asked Kurenai noticing that the masked shinobi was sitting there quietly without talking to anyone.

"Just joined today," he replied.

"Oh congratulations! I know I had to try for a whole year before they allowed me to join the program." Kurenai said making the blonde ninja turned his head towards her curiously. She noticed how bright blue his eyes were before he returned his attention back towards the table.

"Whoever rejected you must have been the dumbest application evaluator in the history of ANBU sensei," said Kiba, nobody rejects Kurenai Yuuhi unless there is something seriously wrong with them.

"I agree with him on this completely," added Asuma nodding in accordance with the Inuzuka heir's line of thought.

"If I know about you correctly then you are a genjutsu specialist right?" asked Naruto instantly ending all the other conservations going on in the table. The teen had a way of demanding attention without even trying.

"Yes, that is correct," affirmed the red eyed genjutsu mistress of Konoha.

"Ah, the Black ops had their foundation built on speed and strength rather than today's stealth and espionage, therefore they always tend to underestimate the prowess of genjutsu in hands of a master," said the blue eyed ANBU, clarifying the question that Kurenai never had the answer to since she got rejected the first time. Kurenai nodded; finally it made sense as to why she, one of the top students of her class, was rejected by the ANBU when she first applied.

"Thank you Fox," said Kurenai gratefully.

"Wow Fox-san how do you know about all this?" asked Hinata in an awed voice.

"Experience," said Naruto a little distracted, but soon had to pay for it.

"Ha liar!" shouted Kiba pointing at the masked boy. Naruto turned to look at Kiba a little confused. "You just said that you joined the ANBU today, so where did all that experience come from?" asked the Inuzuka in a sarcastic voice.

"Idiot!" thought Naruto to himself as he desperately tried to come up with a suitable explanation for his slip. "Um, you see, it's not like I haven't had missions with ANBU before," said the blonde trying to rectify his mistake.

"Yeah that happens a lot of times," said Shikamaru, he himself had gone on several ANBU missions even though he had never been a part of the black ops division himself. Kiba was about to retort but the waiter came back accompanied by two others as they set the food in front of the people who had ordered them.

"Kiba-kun, please calm down," said Hinata as she pulled on Kiba's shirt making him sigh but comply. There was no way he was not listening to his princess when she asked him to do something like this. He shot the masked blonde a look that said clearly 'this is not over' before he started eating.

"Itadakimasu," muttered the blonde in a very low voice as he separated his chopsticks and started eating his salad. Everyone was quiet as they ate lunch and for a while the only sounds that came were that of chopsticks and the crunch and munch of food being eaten.

"So was there a specific reason why you joined the ANBU?" asked Lee looking up from his food as he addressed the masked man. Naruto also stopped as he thought over the question for a bit.

"Yes, I wanted to make this a learning experience," lied the blonde jinchuuriki before continuing to eat his salad. Lee nodded; maybe he should also join the ANBU that way he might learn some new Tai jutsu moves that he didn't know about, thought the spandex clad Chuunin as he resumed eating his meal.

"He's gotten much better at making up lies," thought Kakashi as he noticed how quickly Naruto had made up the lie about why he had joined ANBU. Soon everyone had finished their food and most of them were either heading back to their houses or to the training fields.

"Shall we go talk to Tsunade-sama now?" asked Kakashi loudly enough to remind the people that might have forgotten that all the Jounins were asked to meet the Hokage in the tower.

"Yeah, let's go," concurred Asuma and all the Jounins headed towards the tower including Fox.

**Hello readers, I am so sorry for the delay but I got stuck reading an amazing Naru/Ino fic called "Ease this Broken Heart" by SkyMaiden. It's a great romance fic and if you like the pairing the you should definitely read it because the author actually makes it believable that Naruto and Ino can be a couple. Yeah, I know that this chapter was a little slow and nothing happened but be patient. Next chapter we have some major things that are going to happen, and lots of action is involved, I mean lots and lots of ass kicking is going to happen in the next few chapters. So far the poll has been that Naruto should use Kubiriki Bocho, so last chance if you disagree (though personally I want Naruto to use it too) but this choice I leave to you, readers. So if you wanna discuss the story in more details leave me a P.M. and please don't forget to review!**

**Thanks,**

**Tanneal. **


	5. The Sunagakure Delegation Part 1

**The Sunagakure Delegation (Part 1)**

The Jounins arrived the Hokage tower to see a very agitated looking Shizune pacing outside the door of the Hokage's office. As they all entered the waiting room, she turned towards them and her face lit up with excitement. "Oh thank god finally you are all here!" she exclaimed as she ran to her desk to enter their names.

"What's the rush Shizune-san?" asked Kurenai, she had known the Hokage's assistant for a while now and if there was one thing that she had come to know about the young medical ninja was that she was a patient and headstrong woman.

"Tsunade-sama just told me that she had important news regarding someone close to me but refuses to tell me what it is," she replied while scribbling their names down as fast as possible.

"Ahh, I see," said Kurenai as she patiently went back to waiting for the Hokage's assistant to finish. Finally she dropped the pen back in its cup before looking up and leading the way to the Hokage's office.

"Your requested audience is here," declared Shizune as she went and took her usual spot next to the Hokage's desk, and clutched Tonton a little more tightly than usual as her anticipation grew about what the Godaime Hokage was going to tell about someone that was close to her. Jiraiya was also there and he stood up as well before turning towards the gathered Jounins.

"Jiraiya let me handle this," said Tsunade and her voice rang with the authority of her position, there was little that the Toad sage could do other than obey the leader of their village. He moved to stand next to the blonde Senju, on the opposite side of Shizune.

"So what is the reason for this urgent meeting Hokage-sama?" asked Asuma as he put out his cigarette and pulled out a new one.

"No smoking in here Sarutobi," said Tsunade sternly. She had known Asuma for a lot longer than either of them let on. Tsunade being Sandaime's student had been there when Asuma was born and had practically raised him along with her own brother Nawaki as they had been but a few years apart in age. After her brother's death they had drifted apart but he remembered her well enough and also remembered the bond of friendship they had formed all those years ago. Asuma obeyed, and for the first time, without any complaints. It was a pleasant surprise to his friends, especially to Kurenai, who had been trying to make Asuma quit ever since the two of them got together.

The door to the Hokage's office swung open and a brown haired man walked in. He was wearing a Chuunin vest with standard Ninja uniform under it. He had a large scar running across his face just below the ridge of his nose. He looked at all the present people with an embarrassed expression before asking meekly to the Hokage after bowing to her. "Am I really late?"

"No Iruka, you are just in time," replied the Hokage and the man relaxed visibly.

"Now, I have three things to inform you today," said the Godaime Hokage as she stood up and faced them with the most serious expression on her face that they had ever seen. Since the things I am about to tell you are S-rank classified, I want an oath of secrecy from all of you immediately. Although, in this I will not force you and you may leave if you do not want to be the bearer of this burden." Tsunade stopped as she read the expression on the faces of all the Shinobis in the room, and was proud when she saw the resolve and commitment they showed for their village and country. "I take it that all of you want to be in this?" she asked. All the Shinobis in the room nodded. Shizune put Tonton down on the ground to perform the oath ceremony along with the others.

They quickly performed the oaths and took their vows before Tsunade continued. "First I want to let you know the worst news we have. There is a traitor among us in this village who work for Orochimaru. Now I know that this is not very surprising to any of you but Jiraiya's spy network tell us that this man is very high up in our political system, meaning that he knows all the secrets that only the council and we ninjas keep. I am telling you this because you are among the very few in this village that I trust completely. Second news is that the Suna delegation is going to be here tomorrow to renew our treaty so I want the village security to be on high alert and send out ANBU squads out of the village to greet and escort the Kazekage and his delegation to Konoha with respect," she paused as she took in a little breath before she dropped the bomb on them.

"The third news that I have is, I am glad to say, is good news," said Tsunade with a little pleased look on her face.

"Does this good news have something to do with him?" asked Kakashi as he pointed towards the window. The three that were facing on the opposite direction of the window turned around to see an ANBU with a fox mask crouching there lazily as his blue eyes sparkled with mischief. Jiraiya, on the other hand, had the most annoyed expression on his face.

"Get away from the window Gaki," he yelled as Naruto jumped into the office.

"Why? Afraid I am going to steal your thunder?" asked Fox in a voice that no one remembered from their encounter before in the restaurant. It was jovial and mischievous, not like the dead voice that he used when he was communicating with everyone in the restaurant as a Black Ops operative. Iruka was frozen on the spot he had been in. That voice, it was too familiar for him to be wrong, is that teen really the one he was thinking about?

"Damn, the boy needs to learn his place," muttered Jiraiya but voiced nothing else.

"Fox?" asked Kurenai as little confused. "What is the good news about this Hokage-sama?" asked the red eyed Genjutsu mistress as she looked at the Blonde teen with a curious expression.

"Yeah, we see ninjas becoming ANBU every day. The only thing that is anything but ordinary is that they boy made it into your personal Black Ops even though he is just in his teens," said Asuma also looking a little confused at the Hokage's earlier words.

Just take your mask off," she said to Fox. "How long was he planning to play this game?" thought Tsunade as she sat back down to enjoy the show she knew she was about to get. Fox hooked two fingers under the mask and pulled it off, revealing the face beneath.

"What's up guys?" he asked as he flashed yet another one of his typical grins at the group. The only member that remained unfazed at this revelation was Kakashi; he only raised his visible eyebrow in that unique eye-smile he had as everyone stared at Naruto with open mouths. Gai was the first one to recover.

"Yosh Naruto, your flames of Youth burns brightly!" he shouted making the whole tower shake as if a mini earthquake had just hit it.

"Just the reaction I was expecting," muttered the blonde, too low for anyone to hear other than Tsunade, who snickered at the boy's annoyance.

"Na-na-na—" sputtered Iruka and Naruto finished the word for him.

"Naruto? Yeah it's me," said Naruto, making Iruka's eyes go even wider than they already were.

"Naruto Uzumaki, you never cease to amaze me," Kurenai cut in as she looked at the tall man with whisker marks on his face. "I do want to ask you however, why do you have a henge on?" she asked curiously, she was a genjutsu expert and she knew a disguise when she saw one.

"Because I did not want to scare Baa-chan too much when I first met her," said Naruto casually and instantly felt the killer intent coming from her. He brushed it off easily but the ninjas in the room below Jounin level paled noticeably. "Alright, alright Baa-chan stop it or else Shizune Nee-chan and Iruka sensei over there are going to faint," said Naruto and Tsunade complied, but she did not stop glaring at the blonde.

"Alright boy, take that henge off," ordered Tsunade and Naruto nodded.

"Yeah, since now you believe that I am me, I suppose it won't hurt to show you my actual face," said Naruto as he turned and faced Tsunade squarely, so the only ones who could see him clearly was Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Shizune. He did a simple seal and dropped his henge. Shizune gasped and put her hand to her face as tears slowly formed in her eyes. Tsunade's eyes got cold and her expression turned stony but other than that she had no reaction and Jiraiya just nodded. "You are lucky to still have your eye you realize that don't you?" asked Jiraiya and Naruto nodded, it was only a long scratch after all.

"Why what's wrong with his face?" asked Iruka in a concerned voice as he stepped forward a little.

"Nothing's wrong Iruka sensei," answered Naruto as turned back so that he could face the others in the room. The reaction he got from them was minimal except for Iruka who jumped a little when he saw Naruto's face. There was a thin scar that ran vertically down along Naruto's face, directly through his left eye. It was very identical to the one that Kakashi had, only it was straighter, finer and just a tad bit longer. While the scar on his face was the most noticeable, it was not the only one, there were also a few that appeared on his arms, making him look more like a battle hardened soldier than a teenage boy. In Kakashi's and Asuma's opinion, it made Naruto look all the more badass, and in Kurenai's opinion he looked a lot more mature and attractive if he left his scars visible like that.

"You know Naruto, you should not hide your true self, people might just like the real you better," said Kurenai and got affirmative nods from the males around her.

"I will keep that in mind Kurenai-sensei," said Naruto with a nod.

"What kind of troublesome things have you been up to?" asked Shikamaru, and for the first time Naruto saw a glint of admiration in the eyes of the Nara for him.

"Oh you know a little bit of this, a little bit of that," said Naruto in a sing-song voice and Shikamaru smirked.

"Wow, I never thought I would see the day when Naruto would use something as clichéd as that," said the Nara and the blonde shrugged.

"Well I don't even know if I am at liberty to say what I have been up to, so…" he trailed off as he waited for the Hokage to tell him what to do next. Suddenly there was an urgent knock on the Hokage's door and Naruto put his mask back on instantly.

"Enter," commanded Tsunade and in came a young woman. She looked like she had barely hit her twenties and her tattoos told Naruto that she was from the Inuzuka clan. Her eyes had that crazed look of a frightened, tensed, and panicked person. "Hana?" said the Hokage as she looked at the frightened daughter of Tsume. "What's wrong?"

"I-I…found them but they were…blood…" she was having a panic attack right there in the office and Tsunade could see that she had to do something but someone else acted first.

"Stop talking and breathe," ordered Fox in that same commanding tone of his as he came forward and led Hana to one of the empty chairs in the office. "Sit down, have some water, and then we can talk farther," he ordered her again and she obeyed him like a lost child. After drinking some water and taking deep breaths, some of her composure returned. She took a long breath and steadied herself before looking up at Fox.

"Thank you," she said, and got a silent nod in response, before turning back to the Hokage. "Sorry about that Hokage-sama but what I found may be of extreme importance," she informed and waited for the Hokage's response.

"Keep going," Tsunade ordered.

"Well as you know members from our clan are excellent scouts because of our unique connection to dogs. Well when this morning two of our clan members had not returned from their shifts at night. Mother grew worried and sent me to see what the matter was. The two I am talking about were on security patrols and as such they were the farthest from the village, but I did not have to look long as I found them close to the village, they were attacked brutally and their fresh wounds indicated that they were attacked while they were on their way back here," she paused as she took a few breaths before continuing to the worst part of the incident. "I found them less than a mile from the village and they were both unconscious from their injuries. Their dogs were also there and one of them was already dead. With the help of my pet and his friends, I was able to carry all three of them to the hospital as soon as I could. One of them had taken a bad hit to their head and has already slipped into a coma, but the other one has chances of recovery and then we may know who attacked them and why?" Hana Inuzuka stopped. She had done her part but she wished she could erase the images of her clan mates injured bodies. They were in worse shape than she had seen corpses in; someone had deliberately attacked and mangled their bodies. As if they were sending some kind of warning.

"Who tended to the injured at the hospital?" asked Tsunade, she hoped that it was Sakura.

"Sakura Haruno was very good and quick about it, she took them both and got started on treating them immediately," said Hana, she had recognized one of Kiba's old classmates, friend, and also the head of the medical department, second to none other than Tsunade herself.

"Okay, thank you Hana. Tell Tsume that they are in safe hands; I will let you know as soon as there are any improvements or developments in their conditions," said the Hokage and the Inuzuka nodded before leaving the room to inform her mother what happened. "Shikamaru, Iruka, I want both of you to go to the hospital and retrieve the medical files and details on the two Inuzuka incidents from Sakura. Shizune, go and assist or help Sakura in any manner at the hospital, with these two new critical cases there, she must be running wild," ordered Tsunade and all three shinobis left to do their respective jobs. "Shino, Neji, I want you two to go to Tenzo and inform him of the current situation and put all my ANBU on high alert," ordered Tsunade and both Jounins left to inform the ANBU head about the village's situation and the Hokage's orders.

"What about us Hokage-sama?" asked Gai enthusiastically as he indicated himself and the other top Jounins of the village, who were all currently in the Hokage's office.

"Right now you all are free to do as you wish; I am not going to be sending you guys on any missions until this delegation and all the meetings are over. But be at the Forest of Death Arena, where we held the preliminaries for the Chuunin exam, at exactly eight thirty. I want you all to help me assess Naruto's skill level as well as what his rank should be," said Tsunade. She was about to get back to her work when Asuma interrupted her.

"But Hokage-sama, any one of us should be enough to assess his skills as a Shinobi," said Asuma, and everybody who knew Naruto personally smiled, he was in for one hell of a surprise.

"Well, Sarutobi, it is just a precautionary step, just be there," she said and even though he knew she had not ordered him yet, this was an argument he wasn't going to get his way. Asuma gave up and nodded before following the rest of the Jounins out of the office.

"See ya later Baa-chan," said Naruto and he was about to leap out of the office when Tsunade stopped him.

"Hold it Gaki, where do you think you are going?" she asked in a stern voice as she got up from her chair.

"Well I was about to get some new clothes and then maybe relax at the hot springs before heading to the forest," said Naruto in a hesitant voice as he could almost predict that his plans were not going to work.

"No you're not! You are coming with me," ordered Tsunade in an angry mother's voice as she guided Naruto towards the lower floor of the tower where the living quarters were. Jiraiya followed just to see how the boy and Tsunade bonded again; it was interesting to see the first time to say the least. She took him into the second floor where all the bedrooms were and gave him a room where he could stay until she found a suitable place for him to live in. "You are staying here for now. If you need to use the hot springs you could just use the one out back, no need to spend money when you don't have to. Now as long as you are living here, there are going to be some rules. You absolutely cannot bring any girls with you for the night," said Tsunade, and Naruto was so shocked that he just stared at her with uncomprehending eyes.

"Whatever you mean Baa-chan," he said, completely confused.

"I said that you cannot bring girls here to spend the night with," repeated Tsunade, she could not understand what was so hard about it.

"But why would they spend the night with me?" asked the blonde and this time got a smack to the head.

"Whoa, clam down hime, he might look older but I don't think he has grown as much as you think he has?' said Jiraiya in a calming voice.

"Hey what's that supposed to mean?" asked Naruto in a cross voice, as he looked annoyed at his Godfather.

"Well news flash boy, have you looked at yourself recently in the mirror?" asked Jiraiya, who was also starting to get annoyed with the boy.

"Umm…" said Naruto and both the Sannins had sweat drops on their heads.

"Well you are the kind of guy that has fan girls following them around all the time," said Jiraiya and Naruto couldn't help but laugh at the ludicrousness of the whole situation.

"Fan girls? Me? Alright Ero-Sannin, Baa-chan I think you both lost it," said Naruto as he laughed maniacally. "Plus why would anybody even wanna date me, if they knew who I was?" asked Naruto as he pointed a finger at his cheeks clearly indicating the whisker marks there. He turned around sharply and entered the room before closing the door.

"Well it seems you don't have to worry about girls too much," said Jiraiya as he and Tsunade made their way back to her office.

"Yeah, I guess not," muttered Tsunade in a saddened voice as she realized that life for Naruto in Konoha was not going to be as amazing as she at first thought it would be.

"Hey hime, why are you so down?" asked Jiraiya, immediately noting the crestfallen look on her face that wasn't there today after Naruto had come back. He had actually seen her smile and laugh earnestly today after so many years.

"Because of Naruto, because we can never give him the life that we want for him, no matter how much we want to," said Tsunade as a few tears leaked from her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

"Now look hime, we might want to act like ecstatic grandparents because we got to see the Gaki after four years but truth be told we are not. And even if we were, you have to realize that he is not really a gaki anymore, he has grown into a man. We don't know what kind of man he is yet but he is a man nonetheless," said Jiraiya as he looked straight into Tsunade's eyes as he made her understand their situation with Naruto.

"I know, but I still love him like I used to, I still care," said Tsunade as more tears streamed down her face and she wrapped her arms around the only person whom she had trusted the past four years with her heart after she thought she had lost Naruto forever. Jiraiya returned the hug.

"And that is why I love you so much," he thought. "And that's what makes you so special," whispered the white haired Sannin to her as he patted her in the back comfortingly to get her to calm down and stop crying.

"Thanks," Tsunade whispered back as she stopped crying and wiped her face.

_ARENA IN THE FOREST AT 8:30_

Tsunade and Jiraiya, along with four ANBU operatives and Tenzo walked up to the tower in the heart of the Forest of Death and Tsunade pulled out a very ancient looking key and entered it in the triangular hole that was at the main entrance of the tower. As they entered, the lights came on instantly and all the fireplaces quickly had a nice fire burning in their hearths. One by one all the Jounins also got there but there was no sign of the loud and unpredictable blonde that they were all waiting for. After a few minutes of waiting Tsunade got impatient and muttered under her breath "Where the world is the Gaki?"

"I am right here Baa-chan!" shouted Naruto as he appeared in the middle of the, seemingly out of thin air. He was wearing his mask on and had a different variation of the ANBU uniform that the Konoha ANBU wore.

"Hmm, where did you get that armor from?" asked Jiraiya in a nostalgic voice as he clearly saw the resemblance in the armor Naruto wore to the ANBU armor that Itachi wore after he made some modifications to it.

"Oh this?" asked Naruto pointing at the clothes he was wearing. "I had this made for me when I went to the Land of Iron. The samurais over there are experts in making armors, so I got this custom made for me."

"But how, those Samurais hate Shinobis?" asked Jiraiya in a surprised tone. The armor that Naruto wore was of the finest quality, of that there was no doubt.

"Oh, those samurais are actually sticklers for promises. I made a bet there with one of their warriors that if I beat him in a duel the traditional way, they would have to do something that I asked them to do. When I won the duel, I asked for an armor set, they had no choice but to give me one, from their best tailors and smiths no less!" boasted Naruto proudly, and it was quite a feat of swordsmanship too. The only people in Konohagakure that could compete with a samurai in the field of kenjutsu were Yuugao Uzuki and Tenten.

"That shows quite the experience as a kenjutsu user Naruto," said Kakashi as he came forward. "But I don't see any kind of weapon on you," he said as he raised an eyebrow inquiring as to the reason.

"Don't worry Kakashi sensei, I have all kinds of hidden weapons," said Naruto with a sly smile on his face. "Oh you all are in for a surprise," thought the blonde mischievously as his grin widened. "So how do you want this done Baa-chan?" asked the jinchuuriki as he turned around so that he could address the Hokage properly.

"Okay, I want you to go one on one with Asuma only using ninjutsu, then go up against Kurenai with Genjutsu, and then finally against Gai with Tai jutsu. The three of us will judge you and based on your performance decide the level you should be in," replied Tsunade as she, along with Kakashi, Jiraiya, Tenzo, and her ANBU went up to the viewing area only leaving the four that will be fighting in the Arena. The blonde Hokage noted with interest when Kakashi put his book away and moved his hitai-ate up so that he could judge the fight with as much clarity as possible.

"Since it is just ninjutsu, I will go first," said Asuma a little smugly as he cracked his knuckles and stepped forward facing the jinchuuriki squarely. Kurenai rolled her eyes and jumped out of the way with Gai so that the two had the whole arena to themselves.

"Ready?" asked Tsunade from her place as she held her hand up, and when got affirmative nods from both the combatants she dropped her hand signaling the start of the fight. Asuma started going through hand seals. Naruto quickly recognized the jutsu he was going to perform and started going through hand seals of his own. Asuma cupped the palm of his hand in front of his mouth and blew out a steady stream of fire as the flames solidified into a sphere before charging across the space between them towards Naruto. The Blonde on the opposite end smirked under his mask, his second element was water, something that was naturally a stronger element than fire, and he simply held the palm of his hand out.

"Water Style: Destruction Torrent," he said and a vortex of water blasted from the palm of his outstretched arm creating a spiraling pillar of water that smashed into the fireball creating a loud hiss. As the smoke cleared, Asuma's eyes grew wide and he jumped out of the way as he saw that the pillar of water had cut through his fireball and had continued on its course directly towards him.

"Whew, that was close," thought Asuma a little surprised at the ferocity of the jutsu. "I have to be more careful, he is stronger than I thought." With that he started attacking again, this time using one of the stronger jutsus in his arsenal. "Wind Release: Blades of Wind," he muttered in a flat tone, and a strong wind picked up inside the arena, as it headed towards Naruto.

"That's a tricky jutsu to dodge or block," thought Naruto as he tried to think of a way to counter it. He knew he did not have much time, so he did the only move he could think of. He put his hands together and concentrated on his surroundings, feeling the moisture in the air. He used his chakra and gathered the moisture about him, drawing the water molecules closer together from the environment before they took the shape of a thin but long water spike. "Water Style: Hard Water Spike," said the blonde masked ninja, his voice was calm and even and the spike made of water launched itself at the wind blades, tearing into them before completely disintegrating the wind blade formation and successfully deflecting Asuma's jutsu.

To say that the people witnessing this were stunned would be an understatement. Kakashi, Kurenai, and Gai had never seen nature manipulation of this degree before and were just wondering what else the blonde was capable of if he could pull something like this off. Asuma just stared at Naruto, his mouth hanging open. To use the water from one's own body and using it in a jutsu was something most water manipulators could do, but to pull water out of the environment like that, and in such a short period of time? He had never witnessed anything like that before! On the other hand, Jiraiya and Tsunade were having very similar thoughts of one man running through their heads, Tobirama Senju. Only one man in the history of Konoha had been a master at manipulating water at such a degree as to create water out of thin air and he was more commonly known as the brother of the Shodaime Hokage, and the Nidaime Hokage of Konoha.

"Are you thinking what I am thinking?" asked Jiraiya to Tsunade as he noticed the glazed look on her eyes as if she was thinking of something else at the moment.

"Yes. At first I had doubts, but seeing him do this, I can now say with affirmative that his ties to the Senju that was so rumored back in the day were true," she said shaking her head at the possibility that he and Kushina Uzumaki might have been actually related in one form or another.

"Man the boy had all the makings of a great Hokage if he got the chance," thought Jiraiya sadly as more and more mysteries about Naruto came into the light. "He had the lineage and the bloodlines to give him the status of royalty among the village. Being the son of the Fourth Hokage, related to the First and Second Hokage, and the God-son of one of the three legendary Sannins, yes he would have definitely been chosen as a candidate for Hokage in any selection." But all Jiraiya could do was sigh, as he felt his age catching up to him. Why did the villagers have to be so dull as to think he was the demon Kyuubi and not its jailor?

"Alright, I have seen enough," said Tsunade loudly holding her hand up, drawing Jiraiya out of his train of thoughts. "Kurenai, you are up." The Konoha Genjutsu mistress nodded and jumped down, doing a graceful summersault on her way towards the floor of the arena.

"Ready?"

"Hai Hokage-sama," answered Kurenai and Tsunade put her hand down as a sign of 'go'. Kurenai immediately went for Naruto and unleashed a barrage of genjutsus on the boy and surprisingly he fell for them. Yet, there was something that bothered her when Naruto didn't really pay attention to his surroundings as he closed his eyes and concentrated on something else. Suddenly he vanished from her point of view and appeared behind her with a Kunai resting on the crook of her neck, Kurenai froze.

"H-how did you do that?" she asked.

"Well genjutsus are my weakness but do you really think I am that stupid? I mean sure I will fall for a genjutsu and be taken by surprise but when I know that it is coming for me, I can easily detect it. As for how I found you? Simple, I just followed your chakra signature and here you are," Naruto said as he moved the Kunai away from her and put it back in his pouch.

"So genjutsus don't really affect you?" asked Kurenai, just a little curious as to how effective her jutsus would be on him.

"No because whenever I am in an illusion I stop depending on my eyes and start relying on my other senses and reading the chakra signatures rather than believing in what my eyes and even what the other senses tell me. In other words, if I realize that I am in an illusion, then that genjutsu is pretty much useless to the person who cast it," explained the blonde jinchuuriki to the Genjutsu mistress of Konoha, who nodded in understanding before looking up at the Hokage to see if she wanted her to continue or not.

"Gai, you're up," said Jiraiya and Kurenai jumped back onto the second platform as Gai took her place as Naruto's opponent.

"What do you think?" asked Tsunade, as she came to stand beside her.

"In my assessment, it was obvious that Naruto's weakness is genjutsu, but he is one of those people who have studied on how to recognize them and counter them. So unless an Uchiha or some other genjutsu expert of really high caliber is facing Naruto, genjutsu wouldn't be too much of a problem for him," replied Kurenai in a confident voice.

"Well, let's get this started," said Jiraiya interrupting Tsunade's conversation with Kurenai and she nodded.

"Are you two ready?" she asked holding her hand up again. When the both nodded she gave the signal to begin.

"YOSH!" shouted Gai as he charged, and Naruto did the same. They met in the middle of the arena and traded blows. Naruto seemed to easily match the green beast of Konoha in hand to hand combat, he was even enjoying it, Kakashi realized as he saw the telltale marks of s mile forming from the creases around his eyes could be seen through the slits of the mask. After a while even Gai started smiling. Finally, after many years of searching had he finally found a sparring partner for Rock Lee, his most youthful and prized pupil.

"Gai, drop the weights," commanded Jiraiya, he wanted to see exactly how good Naruto was in the art of hand to hand combat. Gai froze, the only people in Konoha who could match his speed when he did not have his weights on was Kakashi, mainly because of the Sharingan, Jiraiya, and Lee when he himself took off the weights around his legs.

"Are you sure Jiraiya-sama?" asked Gai and Kakashi at the same time. They both knew that Lee was the most gifted taijutsu user among his generation; Jiraiya was one of the legendary Sannin, and Kakashi had a Sharingan which helped him predict Gai's movements, allowing them to fight Gai on equal footing.

"Troublesome," muttered Naruto under his breath. "Say Gai-sensei, are you as fast as Bushy-brows when you don't have weights on?" asked Gai's blonde haired opponent, looking at him with thoughtful blue eyes.

"No," replied Gai, and Naruto began to relax a little bit. "I am faster." Damn! Naruto was barely able to stifle the curse before it came out of his mouth.

"Yes, I am sure Kakashi," said Jiraiya in reply to the Cyclops's earlier question.

"Well then, it seems I have no choice," said Gai as he sat down on the ground and started taking the pair of orange padding off his legs, and soon enough Naruto could see the weights he had on with enhancement seals inscribed upon them. When Naruto had seen Lee take those off earlier in this very same Arena, he could not see clearly but he did wonder how those small metal plates could enhance Lee's speed so much. Now that he knew about seals, it made a lot more sense, they could increase and decrease the amount of force those plates would exert upon the user on the user's command, and they could be deactivated at any moment. Yet altogether those plats had to be at least forty pounds each.

"Don't worry Gai sensei, I will deactivate the gravity seals I have on," said Naruto with a casual smile, making Gai wonder just what more was the young ANBU hiding.

"Eh, did he say gravity seals?" asked Jiraiya as he rubbed his ear.

"I believ—" Kakashi began to answer when the Hokage's annoyed voice interrupted.

"Yes he did, you old baboon now shut up," yelled Tsunade which effectively made both Jiraiya and Kakashi close their mouths instantly. "Naruto, you have permission to deactivate the seals," said Tsunade as she saw Naruto forming a one handed seal as tattoo like markings appeared on his upper arm before disappearing again. Naruto rolled his shoulders a few times and started hopping on the balls of his feet immediately.

"Ahh, that feels better," thought the blonde to himself, one had no idea how light one felt after letting a 55x gravity seal leave one's body. "Ready Gai-sensei?" asked Naruto as he got an enthusiastic nod from the green clad opponent.

"Resume," ordered Jiraiya as he stared intently at the boy who he wanted to make the next toad sage. To the surprise of all the people watching from balcony, both the combatants disappeared before the both reappeared the next moment in the middle of the arena with a resounding clash and an explosive burst of air from them. Both of them had their legs completely outstretched as the appendages met in a perfect 'X'. They both looked at each other with shared admiration before disappearing again. Soon, the arena was filled with booming sounds and sudden bursts of air seemed to just blow out of the open windows like some kind of giant was breathing inside. Jiraiya didn't need to witness the fight anymore, he was already sure that the boy was easily Jounin level, even Sannin but sadly the boy did not know Sage-mode. Heck the white haired Sannin wasn't even sure if he could summon toads again, after all he hadn't summoned Gamabunta or any toads for that matter, for four years.

"What do you guys think about this?" asked Tsunade as they all noticed the small crater on the wall from which the bruised Gai separated himself before giving Naruto two thumbs up for his 'youthful' attack.

"To tell the truth Hokage-sama, he has turned out to be a fearsomely strong Shinobi," said Kurenai. She, like everyone else in the arena, had noticed that Naruto was able to beat each and every Jounin he had gone up against even though none of the opponents went all out. But to be able to take on three Jounins without even breaking a sweat, that is commendable enough.

"Indeed, and we should probably stop those two before Gai is no more than a stain on the wall," said Asuma with a chuckle much to the disapproval of the red eyed Kunoichi among them.

"Yeah, he is definitely on par with Jounins so my opinion is that he should be one." Kakashi said giving his opinion on what the blonde jinchuuriki's shinobi rank should be.

"Yeah I agree with Kakashi, that gaki has grown strong enough," said Jiraiya with an approving nod of his head.

"Fine then, I will be entering his file with him as a Jounin," said Tsunade, smiling a little proudly at the boy she considered her grandson. "You there monkey mask, go tell Shizune to make his file and enter him as a Jounin," she said to one of ANBU who had the chimpanzee mask on.

"Actually Hokage-sama, I am wearing the chimpanzee mas—" the ANBU started but was smoothly cut off by Jiraiya.

"Leave before you end up in the hospital," said the white haired Sannin taking pity on the man as he saw a vein appear on Tsunade's forehead. The ANBU immediately took off; he was well aware of the Godaime Hokage's temper and was just glad that he was able to avoid facing her wrath.

"Hey you two can stop fighting now," shouted Tsunade to the two shinobis that were still fighting inside the Arena.

_THE NEXT DAY_

Tsunade was standing in front of the huge gates of Konoha with her most trusted shinobis as she waited for the Sunagakure delegation to arrive. Soon enough a small group appeared in the horizon which swiftly grew and it was soon discernible that the Kazekage and his delegation were on their way towards them, and they were travelling much faster than they needed to. Naruto finally noticed the bruises and blood on Gaara's sash that held his gourd and instantly knew something was off. "Where are the ninjas that I sent to escort the Kazekage?" muttered Tsunade in a confused voice as she could see no Konoha Shinobis coming up behind the Suna delegation.

"Hey Baa-chan I think they were ambushed," whispered Fox as he moved closer to Tsunade so only she could hear him.

"What?" asked the Godaime Hokage, she was not sure that she had heard him right.

"Look at the blood on his clothes," insisted Fox, he was obviously indicating Gaara's clothes and sure enough there were droplets of dried blood that was clinging to his usual red armor that he wore.

Damn," swore Tsunade as she turned to Tenzo and Kakashi. "I want the village on red alert and I want the village sealed off right now!" she ordered and Kakashi and Tenzo both gave curt nods before taking off to do as they were ordered.

"What the hell is going on?" asked Jiraiya as he moved to stand next to Tsunade and Fox.

"Let's ask someone who knows," said Fox as he turned back to look towards Gaara who was making his way swiftly towards Tsunade with a grim expression on his face.

"With all due respect Kazekage-sama, what the hell happened?" asked Tsunade as she stared intently at Gaara as the rest of the Suna delegation finally entered Konoha after their leader.

"We were ambushed by Otogakure shinobis," said the red haired Kage.

"And where are the ANBU units and shinobis that I sent out to escort your delegation?" asked Tsunade, already fearing the answer.

"If it wasn't for them we would all be either dead or captured by them," answered Gaara.

"How big was their force?" asked Jiraiya with a worried tone.

"As big as it was when we attacked Konoha four years ago," said Gaara referring to the Sand/Sound invasion.

"And who is behind this?" asked Tsunade as her face contorted with anger as she had a pretty good idea as to who was behind the sudden attack. The Kazekage looked away a little before turning back and said in a grimmer tone.

"The Otokage himself, Orochimaru is leading the main force."

**KYAHAHAHAHA! Another cliffhanger, I am devious. Well here is Chapter 5 of the Kage Chronicles. Now I realize that people were not happy with the previous chapter but it was important as we have seen a quality of Naruto that is going to become an essential asset to him in this story. This is the last chapter where the readers can vote whether they want to see Naruto using Kubiriki Bocho or not, so vote fast. Now since I am new to Fanfic, I am always open to new ideas and critical reviews so don't hesitate to say what you want to read or point out my mistakes. If you want to discuss this in greater detail just shoot me a P.M. and please review.**

**Thanks,**

**Tanneal. **


	6. The Sunagakure Delegation Part 2

**The Sunagakure Delegation (Part 2)**

"What are we going to do?" asked Tsunade as panic started to set in her mind. This was her village and it was about to get attacked by one of the most sadistic and cruel people she knew in the five elemental nations. He had not only destroyed and tarnished the name of the Sannins; he had killed her sensei and father figure and betrayed Konoha in more ways than one.

"Yes this does seem to be a bad situation for us," admitted Jiraiya as he rubbed his chin trying to think of something to barricade the village effectively and increase its defense at the same time. The Godaime Hokage, along with the Kazekage, the ANBU, and a few Jounins has moved back to the tower and were in an intense meeting about the defense of the village. She had set all the Chuunins in the village with the task of evacuating the villagers aided by the genin teams. All the available Jounins were set tasks in increasing the defense of the village and Danzo for once had cooperated by giving all his ROOT forces to the Hokage's command until the attack was averted. Since Gaara still did not know that Naruto had returned to Konoha, he had kept his mask on.

"Hokage-sama, Jiraiya-sama, I think it is prudent that we pay attention to the crisis at hand. The first thing that all of us have to think about is the safety of this village and the villagers. After the Chuunins are done evacuating the village, regroup them and form teams and send them to aid the Jounins that are currently out on the field. The ROOT is massive in numbers yet diverse in techniques and specialty and that should give us enough to match the number of the forces. Put them under the command of the strongest Shinobis in this village and send them out to meet the main assault force of the Otogakure army, and yes you two are going to be the ones to be facing Orochimaru." Fox stopped as he saw all that he had said started to sink in to the two Sannins.

"Yes, he is right hime," said Jiraiya as he looked at the blonde teen, waiting for him to continue.

"Yeah," Tsunade nodded as she rubbed her temples. "Keep going, we might as well listen to you."

"Hokage-sama, if I may," said Gaara interrupting whatever Fox was going to say.

"Of course Kazekage-sama," said Tsunade indicating that anything he may say will be considered.

"I was wondering that since we are allies, I would like to participate in actively defending Konohagakure," declared Gaara without any hesitation or doubt in his voice.

"But…" before Tsunade could complete her argument, the Kazekage held is hand up.

"I know that you will object but do not think of this as something I am doing out of obligation. I am doing this as a small way to repay the huge debt that I owe Uzumaki Naruto," said Gaara, and even though his voice was usually emotionless, it cracked a little when he said the name of his first and closest friend.

"I suppose that there is no way we can stop you if you have already decided to fight alongside us," said the Godaime Hokage with a sigh as she looked at the young and headstrong Kage of Sunagakure.

"None," confirmed the red haired Kage, leaving no doubts that he will do anything to protect the village of his allies.

"So do you have any ideas about how we can go about defending the village?" asked Jiraiya as he wondered if the resourceful jinchuuriki of Suna could come up with something to help Konoha.

"I am afraid that I am at a geographical disadvantage," replied Gaara. "In Suna we make effective use of the desert surrounding our village to our aid by forcing our enemies into the dry land and away from most of the populace. We can then shut ourselves into our own village and out sustain the enemy, or force them to surrender when they run out of supplies, as was done during the second Shinobi World War." Gaara stopped talking, but a certain blonde jinchuuriki's mind started running as he heard some things in Gaara's speech that started giving him an idea of repelling the attack with better odds than the Sand/Sound invasion.

"I think my idea might work," pointed out the Fox masked Shinobi as he went to the wall from which the map of Konoha was hung with careful detail and extremely accurate craftsmanship. "Since we have a siege wall surrounding our village, the only places where they can penetrate us is in these four points," said Fox indicating the four main entrances into the village. "They are attacking from the northeastern side of the village, so we can use our forces effectively to push them here where they will be stuck between the forest and the ravine that leads to the Valley of the End." Fox looked at Tsunade who was frowning, and then at the Toad sage on whose face a small smile was forming.

"How would that help us?" asked the Godaime Hokage as she saw no way that their numbers diminishing at this assault. "Their numbers and forces are still there."

"The effect of the maneuver is not reducing their numbers Hokage-sama, but on the effect it will have directly on the battle," explained a scarred Jounin as he entered the office of the Hokage.

"Ahh, Shikaku, what took you so long?" asked Jiraiya as he looked at the best battle strategist and tactics master in Konoha.

"Well when you summoned me I was helping out all the Nara youngsters of my clan into the Hokage Mountain, but it seems that the youngsters are no more energetic than their parents," replied Shikaku with a sigh (all the others in the room, except Gaara, had to stifle their laughter at that). It had taken a lot more effort than he had anticipated in getting the younger Naras out of the compound and into the safety of the Hokage Mountain.

"But do tell how Fox's strategy helps the battle directly," asked Tsunade getting back to the point immediately.

"Well if they are stuck in a narrow path with no way of taking the ground but straight ahead, do you not think that the people in the back would be a little hard pressed to use their…jutsus most effectively?"

"Hmm, is there anything else you want to suggest that might prove better for us?" asked Tsunade as she understood the shrewd blonde's idea.

"Well, I was thinking about this as I was heading over as well and my son has already said that our land's layout puts the main village in a very good position with many natural defenses," said Shikaku proudly, it seems that his son had not only inherited the Nara's laziness but also the sharp thinking trait, one that was becoming increasingly rare among the Nara clan these days. He looked at the blonde Hokage as she seemed to be thinking about something with a far off look in her face.

"That is the main force, what about the other units?" she asked.

"There is one that is heading from the south and two heading from east," replied Shikaku, the main force was still far away and would not reach the village for hours, the units coming from the East was the closest and they had to act quickly.

"Who are leading these units in the East?" asked Jiraiya, he knew most of Orochimaru's lackeys and his spy network was the only one that had the most information on the Snake-Sannin and his operations.

"The larger unit is being led by Kabuto Yakushi, and the smaller one is being led by an unknown Shinobi," said the scarred Nara and got a nod from the white haired Sannin.

"Kakashi, Gai, you will be in charge of the soldiers and Shinobis that will be facing the units in the East. That direction is Konoha's most vulnerable and therefore you have no option but to completely decimate their forces and take any remaining ninjas as prisoners, understood?" asked the Toad Sage, the sternness in his voice and the expression on his face was all that the Jounins needed to see that this time the Sannin was deadly serious.

"Hai!" they both replied before nodding to the Godaime Hokage and left to prepare for the coming war.

"What about the unit to the South?" Tsunade asked.

"This one is lead by three unknown Shinobis. They all appear to be in their teens but they are maneuvering and controlling the soldiers like experts, their coordination and communication is flawless. Other than that little is known about them except for physical appearance."

"Yeah, what do they look like?" asked Jiraiya a little intrigued.

"There are two males and one female. One male, average but muscular build, has white shoulder length hair, purple eyes, and shark-like teeth. The other male is huge, nearly seven feet in height, has dark orange hair and blood red eyes. The third member, a female, has dark red hair, maroon eyes and wears glasses," finished Shikaku Nara as he looked a little worried. Unless these three were strong, they would not be chosen to be in charge of Orochimaru's units, but if they were here where was the Snake-Sannin's top disciple?

"Oh damn, these three always spell trouble," muttered Jiraiya under his breath but it did not go unnoticed by the Hokage.

"What do you mean Jiraiya?" asked the hazel-eyed Hokage.

"They are…colleagues of sorts to our most favorite Uchiha," began Jiraiya and Tsunade's eyes grew wide. "These three along with the Uchiha have collectively formed a stealth and espionage team for Orochimaru known as Team Hebi. They are all hard hitters except for the girl and they all have unique abilities that they are quite adept at wielding. The white haired assassin is known as Suigetsu, a Mist Shinobi who was going to become a Swordsman of the Mist but was kidnapped by Orochimaru. He is strong but anywhere near water and his strength quadruples because he has immense control over water and can change his own body into water and hide. Juugo, the orange haired boy, had temper issues as well as periods where he went into rages and did not remember a thing. He was the one from whose cells all the Curse Mark powers come from. He is truly a beast and not even I can equal him in raw strength. But his weakness is that he is hot headed and when angered enough, he loses control and attacks like a wild animal. Karin, that girl is not strong but she has a gift that easily puts her as one of the main assets to the group. She is the best sensor type Shinobi I have ever met, because of her Team Hebi followed my trail almost all the way to Mount Myoboku—"

"WHAT?" growled Tsunade unable to believe that they could track someone as elusive as Jiraiya.

"No offenses Jiraiya-sama but you are not as good at disappearing as you may think," interjected Fox making both the Sannin turn on him.

"What are you trying to say?" asked Jiraiya always ready to fix an error of his way. Thankfully he was not the type that got superiority complex like some other ninjas, for example Hidan who had truly started to believe that he had become invincible, but there was a fine but major difference between immortality and invincibility.

"What I am saying is Sasuke probably studied your patterns, what you do to gather information what kind of places you go to and what kind of alibis you use. Once he had those it does not take a genius to go to the brothels or dance bars and scare the owners a little bit to get whatever information he needs to know where you went," said Naruto making the Sannin think a little bit about his ways.

"Well I guess I have to stop doing that," muttered the white haired Sannin to himself as he got whacked upside the head by his blonde teammate.

"What was that for hime?" asked Jiraiya as he tenderly rubbed the slightly bruised spot on the backside of his head.

"I told you to be careful," chastised Tsunade with a deep frown on her face. "And still those… upstart youths were able to figure out your methods that you so boasted about being foolproof," the blonde woman was practically shaking by the time she finished her sentence. "And you did not even bother to tell me that they had been able to track you almost all the way to Mount Myoboku!"

"Wow did not know you cared hime," said Jiraiya with a warm smile crossing his face but this time she just turned away from him, confusing the toad sage a little bit.

"Baka," thought Tsunade as she wiped her tears away discreetly and regained her composure.

"Shikaku tell us what you think we have to do?" she asked, and her voice rang with the power of the Hokage once more.

"Hokage-sama, as the leader of this village it is up to you to fight Orochimaru and I am assuming that Jiraiya-sama is going to accompany you in this?" the Jounin stopped to make sure that his assumption was correct before proceeding and continued when he got a nod from the white haired man. "The largest portion of ROOT and your own ANBU stand ready to follow you into battle right now. There is another ROOT division ready to face the unit coming from the South but frankly I don't know whom to send to lead this division because I know very little about the ones controlling the opposite unit. So I will leave that up to Jiraiya-sama. I will await further orders but until then I will be joining the main ranks of Shinobis and help defend the village," said Shikaku and bowed before leaving the office after he got a small nod from the Hokage.

"So who is going to face Team Hebi?" asked Fox when he noticed that neither of the Sannins was moving or doing anything that indicated that they were interested in the battle.

"I think the Kazekage, along with his siblings can take care of them quite nicely," said Jiraiya, almost absent mindedly and Gaara got up and left, taking that as his cue to leave the Hokage and her old companion to themselves. The office was now completely empty except for Fox, Jiraiya, and the Hokage herself. Naruto took his mask off, and put it on the desk as he looked at the two older Shinobis curiously. They were neither speaking, nor looking at each other. They seemed to be focusing their thoughts on something other than the battle and Naruto found that a little disturbing since he thought that these two of all people would be the ones most worried and hectic in a situation like this.

"Okay Ero-Sannin, before you go off to kick some Orochimaru ass I need you to do something about this mole in Konoha council. I want you to bring each and every council member under lock and key, tell them it is for their own protection or something so that they don't give you a hard time. If any of the council members are missing that is our mole," said Naruto, almost like an order rather than an advice.

"Yes, I will send someone to do that," said Jiraiya nodding at the blonde boy's suggestion.

"Okay," said Naruto as he put the Fox mask back on. He waited for farther orders but when none were forthcoming he jumped out the window to join the battle.

_WITH NARUTO_

As soon as Fox landed outside the Hokage tower, he knew that he had to spy and figure out exactly why Orochimaru was attacking Konoha right out of the blue? And where was Sasuke, it was not like the Snake Sannin to let his best disciple miss a chance to experience a full-scale war like this. He knew that the main force that was being led by the palest of the Sannins himself so he knew where to find the man and get some answers. As he was about to get going he saw three Kunoichis walking swiftly towards the Hokage tower. Curiously he followed them but kept a good distance away from the so they did not notice him.

"Hinata, do you know why Tsunade-sama summoned us so suddenly?" asked Ino, her long blonde ponytail swishing from side to side as she walked at a brisk pace.

"No, I was actually going to spend some time with Hanabi, she just got back from a mission and we haven't talked in a long time," said Hinata in a downcast voice, she was looking forward to having a nice conversation with her sister. Hanabi had become a lot warmer and friendly after she became a genin and started socializing with people outside of the Hyuuga.

"Now that I think about it, isn't she one of the youngest Chuunins from last year?" asked Sakura in a thoughtful voice.

"Yes," replied Hinata with a nod.

"Yea, I can't believe that someone as immature as Konohamaru actually became a Chuunin!" exclaimed Ino as she remembered the mini Naruto clone jumping up and down when his name was announced as a Chuunin. Fox nearly stumbled and fell over, was he hearing it right? Konohamaru had become a Chuunin? He would have only been…thirteen years old last year, and he actually got promoted, impressive.

"Have you ever taken the time to talk to him, he is not as immature as you think," said Sakura as she remembered the young and hyper active grandson of the Sandaime Hokage.

"I have talked to him before but he always tries to pull on my hair," said Ino as he ran her hand through her ponytail.

"I have never seen anyone use a cloth like they way he did," said Hinata with a smile as she remembered how the boy had nearly choked his opponent to death by using a shadow clone and wrapping a long scarf around his opponent's throat and pulling it from opposite sides until the guy lost consciousness.

"At least he stopped wearing that ridiculous outfit that he always wore before he became a Chuunin," said Ino in a smug voice.

"I thought that outfit looked good on him," countered Sakura, the high waters, the full sleeved sweater reminded a lot about an orange jump suit wearing shinobi.

"In my opinion he looks a lot more mature with that black outfit he wears over the mesh fishnet armor, and the only unique skill he has is that he can use a Bo staff," said Ino as she remembered the efficiency with which Konohamaru wielded a black staff with golden embossing on each end. She had seen him practicing when she was looking for Ebisu to give her a mission report for one of the ninjas they had captured that she was supposed to interrogate.

"You don't give him enough credit Ino-chan," said Hinata a little shyly. "He usually beats Hanabi in most all out spars they have in the Hyuuga compound and Hanabi says that even though he acts like a fool, it's just a charade because he is quite intelligent and that behavior helps him hide his true strength from the casual observer."

"What?" Ino asked a little shocked. Wasn't Hanabi the top rookie of the year, and here her purple haired friend was saying that Konohamaru beat her on _most _spars?

"It's true, I have actually analyzed his real skills as a shinobi by Tsunade-sama's orders and he is already high Chuunin level. He is also a power house as his chakra reserves are way higher than a Chuunin's and some of the jutsus he knows are things that regular shinobis can't master even if they tried," said Sakura as she clearly remembered Konohamaru doing the mysterious jutsu that Naruto always used, Rasengan was it? The only people she knew that could perform that jutsu were Kakashi sensei and Jiraiya-sama. Fox was intrigued, what kind of jutsus the young Chuunin had learned, he wondered.

"Oh yeah, like what?" asked the blonde haired interrogator in a skeptical voice, and Fox paid full attention to learn the answer himself.

"He knows an A-class jutsu called the Rasengan," said Sakura as she looked at Ino to see if she knew what the pink haired medic was talking about. Fox actually stumbled at that.

"What does it do?" asked Ino obviously having no idea what Sakura was talking about by the blank expression on her face.

"It's a sphere of highly dense and compressed chakra that is spinning at high speeds, the faster you can make it spin without losing its form, the more damage it will do, and you release it on contact with whatever you are attacking," said Sakura as she saw contentedly as Ino's eyes grew big.

"No way, that big mouthed fool could never have the amount of chakra control to attempt jutsus half as complicated as that," exclaimed Ino though she knew that Sakura would rarely lie about things such as this.

"But he does, it is the strongest jutsu he knows," said Sakura with a firm nod and Ino just shook her head at the incredulity of the things she was hearing.

"And who taught him this amazing jutsu?" asked Ino as she emphasized on the word amazing.

"I think he learned it from Kakashi-sensei on that month long training he did," replied Sakura casually.

"Your sensei actually gave someone else training?" asked the blonde haired girl with big eyes. Kakashi was known for being a reluctant teacher as he had only taught team seven, he had turned down every genin team before that and all the ones after.

"Yeah, I was a little surprised too," said the pink haired girl animatedly.

"We should go, or we will be late," chirped Hinata timidly, they were talking in front of the big red tower for five minutes and hadn't entered it yet. Hinata's two companions nodded readily, they did not want the Godaime Hokage mad at them for any reason whatsoever. With that the three girls entered the Hokage tower.

Fox nodded as he leaped to the roof tops before taking off towards northeast of Konoha as he blurred towards forest, he would need cover. That way he could analyze the layout of the army so that he could enter it and spy on Orochimaru without being detected. As soon as he entered the vicinity of the army's actual position he started seeing sentries and guards, placed strategically so that it did not take too many men to guard the perimeter, but none of them were too far from another and they all could see the other if they looked at directly towards the sentry next to them. "Taking out the sentries shouldn't be too difficult but it seems that getting to Orochimaru without being seen will not be easy," thought the blonde ANBU as he sat on a branch looking at the heavily packed army of Orochimaru, spreading out in a circular pattern around a large white tent. Fox did not have any doubts that the Snake Sannin was in that lavish looking tent while all his soldiers had was dirt to sit on and wild berries to eat. The masked shinobi landed deftly next to one of the sentries, and even before he realized that there was another presence close to him, the sentry was dead.

"Man, when will Orochimaru start producing ninja that will at least pose a challenge?" thought the blonde as he did a one handed seal, and slowly a light fog rolled over the area where the army was situated.

"What the hell?" he heard a low curse from one of the sentries, and quickly moved the body of the sentry he had just killed in a bush. With a satisfied nod at his handiwork, he pulled out two kunais. Slowly spinning a kunai on each index finger Fox entered the Otogakure shinobi camp.

_IN THE HOKAGE TOWER_

Sakura Haruno, Ino Yamanaka, and Hinata Hyuuga stood in front of their Hokage as she had summoned them for very important reasons. "So tell me do you three realize what is going on in our village?" asked Tsunade as she eyes the three top Kunoichis from their generation.

"My father told me that we are in the middle of a an attack from Otogakure, one of the villages that attacked us about four years ago, while Sunagakure is here to aid us even though only the Kazekage is present with his siblings," replied Ino Yamanaka as she had heard everything that her father had told her before he left the Yamanaka flower shop to join his team.

"I know that Konoha is under some kind of attack, but did not know it was this severe," said Sakura as she had noticed the influx of injured shinobis that were being brought in every second.

"Umm…I knew that Konoha is under attack from Otogakure a-and t-that the village is under l-lock down," stammered out Hinata before going quiet again.

"All three of you are right! Otogakure has launched an invasion on Konoha and yet it is correct that the Kazekage is here assisting us with his siblings. What I want the three of you to do is very important. Keep the village safe from any threats until the battle is over," the Godaime Hokage stopped to see the reaction from the shinobis in front of her and got the response she was looking for. All three Kunoichis stared at her with absolute incredulity written across their features, not even one attempted to speak as they all doubted that their voice would support them. "By the expressions on your face I think that you three are probably thinking how that is possible since the threat is so large it would be impossible for three shinobis to handle the situation single-handedly and you would be right if you were in the battlefield itself. But you are not in the active war-zone, you are being told to keep the city behind the walls in safety," clarified the blonde Senju as she saw comprehension replace their previous expressions.

"But don't you think that just the three of us will not be enough?" asked Ino as she looked at the Hokage for an answer.

Tsunade smiled seeing the uncertainty on the face of the Kunoichis before responding to Ino's question "Well, you three will be the first line of defense, there will be younger Chuunins who will also help defend the city but they are not as experienced or as strong as the three of you. Plus you three have served in the ANBU each for a year and you three work perfectly as a team, completely coordinated and devastatingly effective with the combination of your unique fighting styles and abilities." Tsunade paused to let them soak in her analysis of them as she had never mentioned to them how their performances were on the field personally. "And don't worry, most of the fighting will be done outside, if any opposing ninjas enter the village, it will either be by accident or just the ones that escaped the battle field and were looking for a respite from the constant battle."

"It seems like a doable task?" Sakura thought that out loudly with a fist on her chin. "What do you two think?" she asked her friends looking from the indigo haired Hyuuga to the blonde haired Yamanaka.

"I think the three of us together can handle it," said Ino before turning to Hinata who was nervously twiddling her thumbs as her eyes darted about the floor.

"I b-believe we can do t-this without too much p-problem," stuttered the Hyuuga but the determination in her eyes were quite clear to all of them.

"Okay, you should get prepared for this immediately, they might attack any moment and we will have to be ready as soon as possible," said Tsunade and the three Kunoichis nodded before disappearing. The Hokage sighed before looking to her white haired friend who seemed to be brooding about something the whole time after the blonde had left their office, and he had dispatched a young Jounin to put all the Konoha Council members under security.

"What do you think Jiraiya?" asked Tsunade in a somber voice and the Toad Sage knew exactly what she meant.

"Let us show Orochimaru that abstinence and sobriety does not necessarily mean weakness," replied Jiraiya calmly.

_IN THE OTOGAKURE WAR CAMP_

Fox slowly snuck closer towards the white tent, not making a sound, keeping his breathing controlled and his movements as light as possible. He had been able to make it through the soldiers with minimum bloodshed as the fog had covered most of his features adequately. It had not completely made him indecipherable to others, but had merely covered enough of him so that most of the soldiers could not distinguish friend from foe. Those who had tried to stop him had fallen to the silent arms of the afterlife, swift and brutally efficient. As the blonde ANBU neared the side of the camp he could already hear voices inside, so he crept even closer and put hear ear against the cloth so he could hear who were talking inside and what they were talking about. He was surprised that Orochimaru did not have silencing seals or any other kind of prohibitions against eavesdropping; the snake was indeed growing careless.

"…tell me what preparations my dear village has made this time for my welcome?" asked the husky voice that was clearly Orochimaru's asked dripping with sarcasm.

"The Kazekage has delivered the news of our coming to the current Hokage, they have mostly cleared away the civilians and their armies stand ready to face us," replied a voice the Fox assumed was one of Orochimaru's informers or spies in Konoha.

"Good," hissed Orochimaru and there was a clear note of satisfaction in his voice, everything was going according to his plans? But how, as far as the blonde knew of Orochimaru's nature he would want all the villagers to see the downfall of the Hokage at his hands. There is clearly something going on, and Fox would know of it even if it was the last thing he did. With renewed determination to protect Konoha, the ANBU leaned in even closer to hear every inflection in the Snake Sannin's voice so that he would understand exactly what the man planned to do with this invasion. "And what about protecting the village?" came the question in a slithering voice.

"They have left most of the young Chuunins to protect the village but there is a trio of experienced Chuunins who will be assisting them in defending the city behind the walls," replied the same man, this time though there was a certain hesitation in his voice.

"You seem worried is there a problem?" asked a stern voice that certainly did not belong to the Sannin, it was heavier, undeniably a male, but Fox did not recognize him.

"Now now, don't scare him so much, he has invaluable information after all," said Orochimaru in a placating voice. "You may say it if you have any concerns," continued the Sannin this time addressing to his informant again.

"Well, I don't know much about your plan Orochimaru-sama, but unless you send some very strong shinobis in there it won't be effective, those three kunoichis are the very best of their year, they are battle tested and have experience from serving in the ANBU for quite some time," came the reply.

"Damn it who the hell is this guy?" thought Fox. "He knows everything about the Shinobi activities in Konoha."

"Kukuku, did you hear that? He thinks that these three can handle the shinobis that we are going to send in Konoha. Tell me what makes you think that these three are so strong?" asked Orochimaru in a sickly sweet voice.

"Well one of the them is the top medic in Konoha, second to only Tsunade Senju herself, a Yamanaka who is an interrogator and a tai jutsu specialist, and the Heiress of the Hyuuga clan, Hinata Hyuuga herself," replied the informant in a tone that said that he was getting a little frustrated with Orochimaru's know-it-all attitude.

"Since we are the only three in this tent, I will let you in on a little secret," the Sannin paused, probably to enjoy the expression that he was seeing on his informant's face. "At the stroke of midnight, Sasuke will infiltrate the walls of Konoha to get some…personal belongings from the vault of the Uchiha, oh and maybe a talented playmate along with it." The amusement in his voice was disgusting and Fox understood full-well what Orochimaru meant by 'playmate'.

"So this whole invasion is a distraction for the Uchiha to get some family scrolls and a girl for amusement?" thought Fox before shaking his head. "No, Sasuke was not going to risk coming to the village to abduct a woman just for pleasure, what is his reason?" thought the blonde masked Shinobi before it hit him in the gut, and his stomach turned at the thought. 'Talented playmate' Orochimaru had said, probably meaning that he was going to abduct a strong and healthy woman to revive the Uchiha clan, a part of that grand ambition of his. So that meant that he was gunning for any Kunoichi he could get his hands on and Hinata was from one of the strongest bloodlines in the village, and the heiress no less! "If that is his main goal, then it will be my pleasure to see it fail," thought Fox as a feral grin appeared on his face under the mask.

_BOOM! _

Fox turned his head to the east where the explosion had come from. The fighting has begun, thought the ANBU as he saw the eastern horizon lighting up in a fiery flow from explosions and jutsus being thrown around between two shinobi armies.

"Ah, it seems that the first of my units have finally made contact with Konoha's Shinobi, let's go it will be interesting to see who is leading the Konoha army and how good they are," said Orochimaru and shuffling noises came from the tent. Fox did not wait, he was already a half mile away by the time the flap lifted and Orochimaru came out of his tent followed by a brown haired male, and a black haired man wearing a half mask on his face covering everything but his nose and mouth. Tucked in his belt was an ANBU mask and he was wearing a black overcoat with a red sash tied at the waist, complete with black gloves, pants and boots.

"I will report all of this to Danzo-sama," said Torune Aburame in a quiet tone before leaping off towards the village, putting his mask back on as he went.

_EASTERN BORDER OF KONOHA_

Kakashi attacked an Oto ninja and stabbed it with a Chidori before knocking another one with a thrown kunai. He saw that another one was about to hit him from the side, but he knew he wouldn't be able to defend himself in time. Suddenly the ninja jerked off to the side, as Gai landed next to him. They nodded at each other before continuing to fight. The Konoha ROOT had met the two units of Otogakure ninja only to figure out that Oto contingent of a unit was far larger than they had previously known. Mostly a unit consisted of about fifty to seventy in numbers but these people had around a hundred members in each, making the Konoha Shinobi number more than a little less against them. Luckily, most of these shinobis were poorly trained and Kakashi himself along with Gai was proving to be more than a match for most of them. Kakashi also noted that most of the Konoha ninjas were fairing quite well against these weak ninjas, but still they were only facing the ones from the first unit.

The second unit just waited there, not attacking but just watching. It seemed really odd but Kakashi could not spare to think about that too much. If the second unit had joined in, they might have actually turned the tide, but they just stared at the fight with blank eyes. The leaders of these two units were waiting all the way back behind the stationary unit. "Kabuto truly turned out to be the cowards that we thought he was," mused the Jounin silently as he kept evading the earth based attacked from a red haired Otogakure ninja. "Gai," Kakashi whispered hoarsely when he saw Gai kicking the living crap out of one of the ninjas. He turned around and looked at his eternal rival with a questioning expression on his face. "Don't you find it odd that practically half of their army is just watching doing nothing?" asked the silver haired Jounin nodding at the group of Shinobis in the back that was just watching the fight.

"Yeah, but I have a feeling that those will join in soon enough," said Gai as they could see that the unit they were fighting did not have many members left and they were regrouping, clearly deciding to retreat before they got run over by the Konoha nins.

"Oh no, this is not good," muttered Fox from his perch in the tree as he looked at the unit that was standing there waiting for the fight to finish. That only happened in one case, the unit that was observing the fight was a curse-marked army. Each and every member of that army was marked with the seal and they knew how to use its power to the fullest, they knew how to activate the second level, and while not all of them were trained ninjas, most of them had one kind of training or another in the shinobi arts. "I better warn them," muttered the blonde shinobi as he dropped from his perch onto the ground and swiftly taking out three shinobis among whom he landed before making his way towards Kakashi and Gai. The blonde ANBU reached the two Jounins just as the opposing unit finally gave out and retreated completely.

"Fox, what are you doing here?" asked Kakashi a little surprised that the blonde ninja showed up here of all places.

"I am not what you should be worried about, they are," replied the blonde as he indicated the fresh but inactive unit that was still only looking at them.

"Yeah, it is little odd but it seems that they are refusing to act against us," said Gai as he looked warily at the rock still enemies.

"That's because they want to catch you unprepared," said Fox, and noticing that he had the full attention of the two Jounins continued. "That is a unit made of curse marked soldiers who know full well how to use the curse mark to its most," the masked shinobi stopped talking and looked at the two in front of him. One was staring at him with wide eyes while the other was thinking about something deeply as he had a faraway look on his face.

"This is not good," muttered Kakashi as he started to think of some way to give the Konoha shinobis the higher ground in the coming fight, while Gai just stared the at the ANBU in front of him with shock. A whole unit consisting of curse-marked enemies? How many did Orochimaru create and was their only purpose to serve him for the rest of their lives? "What do you suggest we do?" asked Kakashi cutting into Gai's train of thoughts as the silver haired Jounin looked at the blue eyed ANBU for some advice.

"The best way to deal with them is attacking them full force and killing them as quickly as possible, before they are able to activate the second stage of the curse mark. Once they activate the second form, their powers increase exponentially and they do not think rationally as the only emotion that goes through them is rage, primal and instinctive anger," explained Fox as he was the only one among them who had the most experience dealing with these curse-marked soldiers of Orochimaru since the Akatsuki had sent him on multiple missions to stop the Snake Sannin from meddling in the criminal group's affairs.

"Well, well, look who showed up to face us," said a boyish tone, voice lathered with sarcasm. Fox did not have to turn his head to know who it was speaking, and Kakashi just turned his head as to see a long white haired man, pushing his glasses up to the ridge of his nose with a smug look on his face. "The mighty, the famous copycat ninja Kakashi Hatake!" he declared gleefully as his eyes lit up with a fierce gleam.

"Dude, you can't beat me how do you plan on defeating him?" asked Fox as he smirked under his mask. Kabuto looked at him with a clueless expression.

"I don't even know you ANBU, and how do you even know whether I can beat you or not?" he asked the blonde haired masked shinobi.

"Man, I don't even know how you survived as S ranked shinobis if you guys are that dumb," said Fox in a taunting voice which infuriated the white haired medic ninja to no end.

"I can crush a bug like you under my foot if I wanted but a shinobi like you is just not worth my time," said Kabuto confidently, getting some of his ego back. Though he had to say the punk had some nerve talking to him like that, by the looks of it that ANBU was no more than twenty.

"You couldn't kill me more than four years ago, and back then I was only thirteen. Do you think that you can beat me now?" he asked as his smirk grew large under his mask.

"Thirteen? Four years ago?" Kabuto's eyes widened and he took a closer look at the blonde talking to him. _Blonde? _Dammit how the hell had he missed that deep golden hair in the first place? "YOU!" He roared as he pointed at the ANBU in front of him, yet suddenly his anger seemed to melt away as he took a few deep breaths to steady himself. "B-but how, Sasuke killed you." Kabuto stuttered out as he looked at the blonde curiously. If he was Naruto Uzumaki why was he still wearing the mask?

"Do you really believe that he was able to kill me?" asked Fox, his voice showed that it would have been quite stupid of Orochimaru and Kabuto if they believed the Uchiha without any evidence.

"It was not that hard to believe, after all Sasuke had used his curse seal's second stage, very few survive an encounter like that, and it was an Uchiha that you fought. His Sharingan must have enhanced his fighting prowess at least three fold," replied Kabuto in a snide voice, he knew his calculation were correct.

"Well you must not have counted the fact that I would be using the Kyuubi's power then had you?" It was not a question.

"Oh actually after the fight with the Hyuuga, it was obvious that you had learned to call upon a small fraction of the Fox's raw chakra at will, it is still quite a surprise that you survived even after the amount of damage a Chidori does to someone's heart," Kabuto was counting on the fact that the blonde would get angered so that he could engage him in the fight and delay his return to the village and Sasuke could do what he came for without any hindrance. Yet to his surprise the blonde remained as stoic as ever, and suspicions began to form in Kabuto's mind. "Tell me Naruto, why are you wearing a mask?" asked the glass wearing shinobi, "are you afraid to show your face to your enemies?" he asked as a smirk began to form on his pale face.

"No, you fool. Do you not see that I am an ANBU of Konoha!" said Fox, in a manner that reminded the white haired man of the young and energetic blonde that had put a rasengan in his stomach which had taken more than six weeks to heal fully, even with his unique regenerative abilities.

"Then show me your face," demanded Kabuto, he would not believe that his suffering was not avenged unless he saw the jinchuuriki alive with his own two eyes.

"Fine," the blonde shinobi undid the strap that held the mask to his face and lowered it before looking straight at Kabuto, with those damned electric blue eyes. He hated the boy with a passion, and most of all he hated those sparkling blue sapphires that showed his determination, his gutsy attitude, and his stronger than iron will as clear as sunlight through open windows in broad daylight. Since he was standing a little bit away from the mass of Konoha shinobis, they could not hear the conversation that was going on between the young ANBU and the white haired general of Orochimaru's army, but they could tell that it was intense, and there was something about the ANBU that just demanded attention. The fact that Konoha's two most powerful Jounins were with him did not reduce the fact that this ANBU was someone quite important either.

Naruto watched with an amused expression as he saw the gloating expression on Kabuto's face contorted to one of anger. His most trusted spy in the village had said that they had presumed the blonde to be dead more than three years ago, so how in the world was the jinchuuriki standing there in front of his eyes, seemingly stronger than ever. "That was quite brave of you Naruto-kun, to expose yourself like that," said Kabuto; the slithery cold quality was back in his voice. "Do not presume that you will be able to leave here alive today."

"You couldn't stop me even if you wanted," said Naruto in a derisive manner as another explosion went off in the southern border of Konoha. Naruto could feel the dark energy of the curse seal invading the air, and his senses were tingling. There was only one man that could use the tainted power to this degree, Juugo. "So Hebi is here," said the blonde haired teen, low enough so that the armies could not hear, but loud enough for Kabuto, Kakashi, and Gai.

"How do you know of Hebi?" asked the white haired man, he was becoming more and more weary of this new and improved Naruto Uzumaki, he seemed more dangerous than before, more…sinister.

"Why they know me well enough too," said Naruto in an amused tone. "They refer to me as their darkest nightmare or something like that." The jinchuuriki had to stifle a laugh as he saw the eyes behind those glasses grow wide. Naruto did have a run in with Team Hebi once before, when he was around fifteen and when Sasuke had not become an official member of the group. They were to carry out the assassination of the Tsuchikage, but the Akatsuki had wanted him to find out if Iwa had any jinchuuriki of their own. Naruto had been able to wound Karin and Suigetsu badly, and Juugo would have died if he did not have his unique abilities to fall back on.

Another explosion in the south lit up the sky with a ghastly white light, man those Suna nins sure have some destructive jutsus up their sleeves don't they?

"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto called and the masked Jounin came forward. "Make sure that you kill him or else my cover will be compromised," ordered the jinchuuriki to which the silver haired man nodded.

"Agreed," he concurred as his green spandex wearing rival also came forward.

"Don't worry Naruto, I will take this traitor down with brightness of my flaming youth or I will run a hundred laps around the Fire Nation!" declared Gai, as he took the nice guy pose. The blonde just shook his head as he put the mask back on. "I am going to assist the Kazekage; I hope you will be able to handle the matters here by yourselves," said Fox as he took to the treetops, before blurring out of sight.

"You will not leave without meeting your end!" screamed Kabuto as he saw the blonde take the treetops but he was too late as the ANBU had disappeared already. Kakashi lifted his hitai-ate before facing Kabuto squarely.

"I will be your opponent," he said in a bone chilling voice.

**WOW! That was a long chapter, took me a while to set up the whole battle situation nicely after springing it in there out of the blue. So now that the stage is set, the fighting will begin yay! I will divide the scenes between the units and the Hokage's fights, oh and a little of Naruto's mysterious past will be shown, so be ready. If you want to discuss the story in greater detail shoot me a p.m., ideas and new concepts will always be taken into account and please don't forget to review.**

**Thanks,**

**Tanneal **


	7. The Sunagakure Delegation Part 3

**The Sunagakure Delegation (Part 3)**

Gaara watched passively as the Konoha ninjas collided with the Oto unit, and jutsus started to shoot back and forth as the shinobis unleashed their abilities intent on ending the life of their enemies. He saw as his sister attacked a small platoon of the ninjas with her wide ranged wind attacks using her chakra oriented fan. On another side of the field he witnessed his brother expertly handling his puppets into attacking every unsuspecting Oto ninja and ending their lives without any delay. The red haired Jinchuuriki was displeased, his main target, the three teens that were leading this unit were hidden from him behind the lines of Oto shinobi, waiting for the weaker ones to do the job for them so that they did not have to risk their skin in any of this. At least that was what went through the young jinchuuriki's head, but his enemies were doing quite a bit more than he suspected.

"What info do we have on the Kazekage and his siblings?" asked Karin as she straightened her glasses before glancing at Suigetsu and Juugo simultaneously.

"He is a jinchuuriki with partial control over the abilities of his bijuu, but he has none over the beast itself," replied Suigetsu offhandedly as he remembered reading the file on Subaku no Gaara while he was confined within the water tanks in one of Orochimaru's active labs.

"He is the jinchuuriki for the one tailed?" asked Juugo to the white haired assassin, who nodded before turning back to their red haired comrade.

"What do you wanna do?" he asked Karin as he looked over to where the blonde sister of the jinchuuriki was pummeling some Oto shinobis with a constant barrage of wind techniques using a giant sized fan.

"I want to recall all the shinobis that have not entered the fight yet, and divide them into two equal groups," Karin paused to make sure that both the guys were listening, and they were. "Then order them to specifically concentrate all their attention on the siblings of the jinchuuriki. As soon as that happens, the Konoha shinobis will also divide their forces equally to back their Suna allies leaving the boy alone for us to handle."

"Yeah whatever," said Suigetsu and Juugo nodded giving his assent. Karin pushed her glasses back in place before running out to tell the commander of the unit his orders.

"What do you want to do?" asked Suigetsu as soon as he was sure that Karin was out of earshot. Juugo looked up from the ground, his eye meeting the mist assassin's.

"To tell the truth, I don't know," he said frowning a little bit. "Karin will be very little help against the jinchuuriki; you could take to the water and start an offensive there. I will be doing the main fighting, head on."

"So you sayin' that I do my thing from the water and you just distract him?" asked the white haired teen, making sure he understood the plan of action. If he made a mistake this time, it could cost them all dearly; they were after all facing a jinchuuriki and more importantly a full blown Kage this time. "Oh damn this is getting exciting!" thought the boy as a malicious grin crossed his face. Karin returned and looked at her male companions expectantly, but when they did not even acknowledge her return, a vein throbbed in her forehead before she smacked the boy next to her upside the head.

"Damn, he's got a thick skull," she muttered as he rubbed her hand and Juugo looked at her with a questioning expression.

"So what's the plan? How are we going to take down the red haired guy?" she asked as she sat down next to the unexpectedly silent Suigetsu.

"I know that you will be doing nothing but sitting out on this one," said the purple eyed boy as he looked off into the distance as a particularly loud explosion went off.

"Wha…WHY?" Karin screeched, she hated it when boys thought they were all high and mighty and started giving her orders. It was okay when Sasuke did it, the role suited him perfectly and Orochimaru-sama had made it quite clear that Hebi was to be lead by Sasuke, but not these two they were nowhere near the stoic Uchiha as far as she was concerned.

"Because," said Juugo as she stood up. "You cannot help in the combat, except for saying where he is located, but this jinchuuriki is not a speed type, neither does he use teleportation or replacement jutsus. He is a power fighter, one that attacks head on and can only be countered head on. That is why I and Suigetsu will be doing the combat, you can choose to lead the Oto shinobis or sit out of the fight your choice," the orange haired teen stood up and started walking out of the tent followed by a smirking Suigetsu.

"Juugo got her good," he thought chuckling until he heard her speaking again.

"What if I don't listen?" asked the glasses wearing girl with a defiant expression plastered very on her face.

"Then you will die." Juugo was looking straight at her and there was the hard truth written on his eyes that none of them could deny.

"Damn it," she cursed as she marched out after the boys but joined the commander who was rapidly shooting orders to the soldiers so that they did exactly as she had asked him.

Gaara noticed a switch in the pace of the battle as the Oto troops suddenly backed away before reforming into two groups of equal size behind the line of soldiers who were retreating slowly while shooting wide ranged jutsus to keep the Konoha shinobis from overwhelming them. As soon as the two groups formed, the front line broke and the Oto shinobis surged forward again but this time, Gaara realized, they were directly heading for his siblings. The Konoha shinobis adapted quickly enough as they also formed lines and backed their allies that were under heavy attack from the opposing unit. The red haired Kage still stood impassively on a small dune made by the sand from his gourd, his eyes constantly scanning the battlefield for the three that were leading this assault against Konohagakure. "Finally," thought the jinchuuriki as his body tensed, and his eyes started to scan the enemy lines with greater speed. Soon enough he caught sight of a man as he catapulted over the enemy lines and smashed down about eight feet away from him.

"Kazekage," he said with a nod and received a silent one in return as Gaara took in his appearance. He had dark orange hair, stood nearly seven foot in height ans was built like a boulder. He threw his tattered cloak away and was only wearing a dark sleeveless tunic, black pants, and heavy mail boots. His bare arms were heavily muscled and overall his appearance reminded him more of a front-line samurai than a ninja. Without any visible seal, his left hand suddenly transformed into what looked like a cannon made of human flesh and he pointed it directly at him before shooting a good sized ball of compressed chakra. Gaara stared at the oncoming projectile as it hurtled towards him and his sand rose to intercept it in its path. The jinchuuriki stared passively as the compressed chakra sphere met his sand armor and grated against the wall of sand before pushing far enough to break through it, much to Gaara's surprise.

He jumped back as the sphere slammed into a tree behind it before alighting in a small explosion taking out everything in a four feet radius. "Impressive," acknowledged the Kage at the force of the odd attack before launching his own sand towards the opponent to neutralize him. As he had expected, the man was faster than his sand and reacted by jumping out of his sand's range staring at the grains that receded back towards Gaara warily. Running through hand seals at a remarkable speed, Gaara swiftly created sand bullets, a jutsu he had aptly named 'Sand Drizzle', before he sent them hurtling towards Juugo while he created another more complex jutsu to trap the shinobi while he would be busy dodging the bullets, making his chances of noticing the trap less. Juugo did not have to put too much effort into dodging the bullets, but he had to keep the pace as they seemed to come at him endlessly, and they were covering a wide range of area so moving completely out of the barrage was out of the question.

He still did not lose his focus from his adversary who seemed to be going through seals to create another jutsu and there was not a thing that Juugo could so to stop him from launching the next attack, which was probably very strong if the number of seals that the Kage was performing was any indication. As soon as he felt the number of sand bullets beginning to lessen, he did not give the Kazekage a chance to finish his seals as he converted both of his hands into cannons and started shooting small spheres of compressed chakra at high rates. Gaara had to stop his seals as he saw several chakra spheres coming at him and fast, and did the only thing he could to keep from getting blasted. He dodged, and that was all he could do as the orange haired boy kept up the rate of his attacks, pushing Gaara constantly closer to the small pond that was near the edge of the forest. The young Kazekage knew he had to do something, so he did the only thing he could with the little time he had to spare. Jumping high in the air and doing a quick set of seals he shouted "Shield of Shukaku Technique!"

The result was immediate as a massive thirty feet wall of hardened sand formed between Gaara and Juugo in the likeness of the one tailed beast himself, albeit it looked like it was wearing a hat for some reason, with red seals marked stylishly on it. Gaara landed and sighed a little bit, if he did not have this Onijutsu (Demon Technique) up his sleeve he probably would have had to take cover in the pond, and that would have been bad as sand never went well with water. Suddenly there was another yell, this time from behind "Water Style: Giant Wave Crash!" and the red haired teen spun around to see a huge chakras propelled wave was coming towards him at extremely high speed. He started to backpedal instinctively; his only thought was to get out of the massive wave's path before it crashed down on him. His back hit the wall that he had created, there was not enough time left to release the jutsu, and he knew he wouldn't be able to move out the wave's path before it smashed down on.

Gaara watched the wave coming at him passively, already accepting the fact that he was going to get hit, maybe even fight back if he was lucky, but that was quite unlikely as the orange haired man had proved to be quite a shinobi. And then, just as the water reached its apex and began the descent on him, someone grabbed him by his right hand and pulled, quite forcefully, lifting him off his feet. That 'someone' was moving so fast that everything became a blur to the Kage before it came to a stop nearly fifty feet away. The Kazekage watched in amazement as the wave crashed into the wall, and the hardened sand gave away, collapsing under the massive pressure that the torque of the heavy wave had built up. He slowly stood up; making sure that his gourd was still on his back before turning around to see the same Fox masked ANBU that he had seen earlier in the Hokage's office. He stood, perfectly still staring at the destruction of the sand wall that he had created only a few moments before. He was still a little disoriented, but it was quite clear that this ANBU had just saved his life.

"What happened?" asked the red haired boy turning towards the taller of the two.

"You just got blindsided by a mist assassin known as Suigetsu," replied the masked ninja as he nodded towards the water where a white haired boy stood with a frown on his face.

"I don't know how you did it but thank you for saving my life," said the young Kage, there was not a trace of gratitude in his emotionless tone, but Fox could make out the undercurrent of anger in them. Oh yes, the Kazekage was pissed alright!

"Not needed, I have faced them before and I know how they fight. I suppose it was not such a good idea to spare their lives after all," the blonde muttered the last part to himself before turning around to face Suigetsu and Juugo, who had joined him by the pond side. The young Kage was studying his rescuer's features with a critical eye. Apart from his physique there were features on this man that reminded him heavily of another person. He also had blonde spiky hair, sparkling blue eyes, and always looked out for his friends.

"So do tell me, when you have faced them before Uzumaki Naruto?" asked the red haired teen, taking a stab blindly. The man in front of him froze for a second as his shoulders rose a little as if defensively before relaxing again as he seemed to have regained his composure.

"What makes you think that I am this person that you mentioned?" asked Fox, his voice a carefully masked tone erasing all emotions and inflections from his voice. To his surprise he saw a smirk form on Gaara's face, to him it was so alien on the Kazekage's face that he was tempted to take his mask off to make sure what he was seeing was not his imagination.

"You have many features that my friend had, but most importantly he had a quality that not many possessed. He never ever let his precious people get hurt and he counted me among those that were precious to him," said Gaara as he looked at the masked ninja with hard green eyes. "And you saved my life just in the nick of time much like he had done four years ago."

"That's all lovely, but we are now going to kill yo—" Suigetsu started to say when Fox's deep voice cut through his.

"No you won't," said the masked shinobi and his voice left no room for argument.

"Yeah, and what makes you think you can stop us?" asked Juugo as he tilted his head a little bit to the side looking at the mask wearing ninja curiously. As far as he knew, there was only one man who had faced them before and had beaten them so utterly that they were completely at his mercy, but for some reason he had just vanished leaving them to their fates. Fox said nothing as he smirked under his masked before slowly pulling it off, revealing his face to the duo before him. Juugo paled noticeably, and much to Gaara's passive amusement, Suigetsu's eyes got so big that there was a chance that his eyeballs might pop out of their sockets.

"It's HIM!" shouted the white haired assassin, taking a few quick and involuntary steps backwards as he turned towards his frozen friend. He saw Juugo nod silently.

"We have to put everything into what we got," said the orange haired man before he started to transform completely.

"Oh boy they are going all out," thought the blonde as a sinister smile crept on his face. "Gaara get you armor ready, they are hard hitters of class quality," said the blonde evenly before pulling out two long and oddly fashioned daggers from hidden sheaths along his pants. He held them both in reverse grips; close to his body, and was channeling a good amount of wind chakra into them, enhancing their edge to inhuman sharpness.

"What are you planning to do?" asked the red haired Kage, he could only see the back of the taller ninja in front of him, but there was something about him that said he was not as worried as the situation demanded.

"Kill them," said Naruto so coldly that Gaara flinched. Yes, Uzumaki had changed alright. Gaara prepared as he let his sand rise him off the ground a little bit, giving him more room to move around. "I take the assassin and you keep this other one busy. When I am done with him we can take the big one out together." The blonde haired boy vanished with a black flash while the Kazekage measured his opponent up. He looked quite different in his transformed state; he skin had become harder, almost wooden, and formed a sort of armor around him. He forearms were now protected with elongated sharp blades protruding from them and his back have six protrusions that were spewing chakra like fire engines. His face had formed a helmet like structure with face guards and an artificial forehead protector. All in all the young Kage's opponent looked like a true beast.

"Keeping this man at bay will prove to be difficult, I have to be ready for anything," thought the red haired Kage as he raised his sand protectively around him before extending his had fully making his sand move towards his opponent at full speed. Juugo charged forward with a roar as he simply punched the sand out of his way as he moved towards his foe. The intent to kill and the sudden rise in of his bloodlust was a little shocking to Gaara, a complete change in personality from the previous reserved and calculating man from before. The sand user's eye narrowed and he formed a few quick seals, trying to make the sand come at the man from so many directions that eventually he would be able to encase him in a full sand coffin before performing his signature killing technique.

Naruto met Suigetsu in a flurry of blows and blurring speed. The mist assassin, though, was an expert swordsman and Naruto was playing in a field that he was learning before he even knew how to run properly. Suigetsu met the blonde stroke for stroke with his large but quite ordinary zanbatou and stood his ground with admirable play in the art of the blade. Yet, he never completed training under the swordsmen of the mist, therefore even though he was amazing; the blonde on the other hand had training under Kisame, one of the most renowned Mist Swordsman, and also rumored to be the fiercest and strongest among the seven. In the end, he was only playing with the young assassin as he suddenly grinned as his hands started moving faster, his blows coming in harder driving the white haired teen back step by step out of his element of choice.

Suigetsu frowned, this was not happening! After their previous encounter, Suigetsu had lost the arrogance that he had on his skill as a swordsman because he had realized that a fully trained swordsman was far more deadly and dangerous than someone who was trained for only a year under the seven. He had practiced and driven himself to the point of exhaustion almost every day to improve himself, and yet here he was, being easily overpowered by the blonde who had left them for the dead for no other purpose than to have fun, as he had come to that conclusion about the young jinchuuriki since he did not do anything with them after injuring them to the brink of their deaths. "Who are you?" screamed the boy as he lunged wildly at his opponent forcing him to back up and sidestep the blow, or else he would have been skewered by the boy's extraordinarily large sword.

"That would be a question that you have to ask your team captain, Sasuke Uchiha," replied the blonde with a sneer as he saw the surprised look on Suigetsu's face.

"Huh? He knows you?' asked the water user as he stopped in midswing, studying his opponent with again, but for different details. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and…_whisker marks!_ Damn, that should have been a dead giveaway from the very beginning, why had he not noticed that before. If Sasuke was cautious of this guy, then they should be freakin' terrified. "Uzumaki Naruto?" It wasn't really a question, because this was a piece of detail that nobody knew except for Hebi was that Sasuke had not killed his friend from Konoha on the day they had fought in the Valley of the End, not even Orochimaru. They had credible reports that the boy was never found after the incident, then what the hell was he doing here defending the damn village just like any other shinobi from this place? Ugh, this was all too confusing to think about and his opponent was too damn powerful for him to divide his attention right now, he could barely keep up with the blonde as it is.

"Whatever gave you that ridiculous idea," muttered the blue-eyed shinobi before he picked up the tempo of his attacks. Soon Suigetsu was driven backwards, he could barely keep up from getting injured but his opponent seemed to have no trouble keeping up with the speed of his attacks.

"Juugo, get out of here!" screamed Suigetsu, the only warning he gave before he took off running with a blonde hot on his heels. But it was no use, Suigetsu jumped into the river and before he even was inside the water, he had turned into water himself. The orange haired boy frowned. If that masked shinobi had been able to drive Suigetsu away and joined the container of Shukaku, then he would be completely over matched.

"I suppose it is time to retreat then," thought Juugo as he activated his powers before turning his feet into rocket launchers of sorts and pushed all the chakra he could muster into it. He was soon hurtling towards the back of the army, and Gaara's sand returned to its wielder, unable to keep up with the speed with which the Kazekage's opponent took off. Naruto already had his mask back in place as he headed towards his friend where he stood panting.

"You look tired," stated Fox as he stared at his friend, his voice almost contemptuous. A sand bullet hit his mask dead on, making the blonde give a hearty laugh. "Alright, alright," he chuckled as he raised his hands. "Go back to your siblings; this unit will be retreating soon enough. And please keep the fact that I am back to yourself, it was already declared an S-class secret by Baa-chan. So I hope you understand," said the masked Jounin. Gaara nodded, and even cracked a small smile at the nickname that he had given the Hokage before he drifted back towards the main battlefield where the Oto unit was retreating rapidly and the Konoha Shinobis were led by his sister with her brother's puppets protecting her from as many attacks as possible. Fox looked at the moon and cursed, it was already ten minutes past midnight.

_IN KONOHA IN FRONT OF THE HOKAGE MOUNTAIN_

Three Kunoichis stood in front of the Hokage Mountain, their back directly facing the faces sculpted on the monument. Behind the three stood the Chuunins that passed the exams and got their ranks in the last two years. The three older Chuunins were in their ANBU suits, complete with masks, though it was quite easy to tell who they were because of their appearance and voices. Konohamaru looked at the kunoichis with a bored look in his eyes before he got off the floor and walked towards the three that were looking at a hand held map and were whispering things among themselves.

"Hey, how long do we have to stand here; I think we should also pay attention to the rest of the borders you know. Ninjas might actually slip past the main force and come into the village," his voice was serious and so was his expression, he was stating the truth as he saw it and his words had merit.

"We know," said Ino and for once there was no malice, disdain, or contempt in her voice towards the young Sarutobi. "But for the most part the other three directions in Konoha actually have shinobis defending it while this side is completely unprotected. I have a feeling that if they want to send a force to capture the village from inside it has to be from here." Ino's reasoning was sound and that was why all the Chuunins that were defending the village had gathered in front of the mountain.

"Konohamaru, that is why I have a very important job for you," said Sakura, as the younger Chuunin turned his head to face her. "If Oto shinobis try to infiltrate the village, I give you the responsibility of leading the other Chuunins into the fight. I know you are the most capable shinobi among them and now it's time to show them just exactly who you have become." Sakura's words affected the boy positively, plus the fact that they had become almost like siblings over the years helped as well. He gave a wide grin in return which reminded her a lot about a certain blonde haired boy. Sakura shook her head, now was not the time to think about him. The toll for the midnight bell just rang, making Hinata jump a little bit but then again she were the easiest to startle or scare among them, an advantage that Kiba used more than a few times.

"Hey what's that?" asked Udon, as he pointed towards the Hokage Mountain. Almost everyone followed his finger and noted movement on it. At last one silhouette of a man stood out clearly, his clothes were fluttering slightly in the wind, and he had a hand on his hips as he just stared down at the village, at them.

"Shit!" muttered Konohamaru before shouting, "ITS HIM, GET READY!"

"Defense formation," ordered Hanabi as she activated her Byakugan and moved to the front of the other Chuunins present while Konohamaru summoned a massive staff that he had recently learned to use, and with quite the proficiency too.

"Hinata are you seeing this?" Ino asked, Hinata was the only one who could tell whether Konohamaru's guess was right or not.

"H-Hai, it is Sasuke Uchiha," said the purple haired Kunoichi, fear was evident in her voice but that was understandable. The many exploits that they had heard about the Uchiha and his certain horrendous accomplishments had instilled quite the fear for him among Konoha shinobis.

"Man where the dark and handsome hero is when he is needed the most?" whined Ino; a playful note was in her voice which surprisingly lightened the mood a little bit even in the dire situation. It was no surprise she was asking for Sakura's mysterious savior; after all he was the only one who had handled the Uchiha single handedly, something even most of the Jounins of Konoha couldn't boast of.

"How many shinobis does he have with him?" asked Sakura, numbers were very crucial in matters such as these.

"V-Very few, only twelve," replied Hinata and Hanabi nodded, that was the same count she had.

"Alright what's the plan?" asked Konohamaru in a serious voice.

"The plan is for us to handle the Uchiha while you take out any allies or comrades he brings with him," said Ino.

"I don't like this, but for now I will go with it," he said as he joined Hanabi in front of the rest of the Chuunins. It seemed Sasuke was directly headed for them as they watched the Uchiha jump off the Hokage Mountain and seemed to be flying directly towards them he had detected them already because of the Sharingan. He landed only a few feet away from the three Kunoichis that was leading the defense force inside the village.

"Good to be back home," mused the missing nin before turning his blood red eyes on the three masked Kunoichis in front of him. "It's been a while," he said as a sinister smile stretched across his colorless lips.

_WITH FOX_

Fox moved as fast as he could in the direction of Konoha proper. He was almost inside the village but he had been miles away from it, deep in the forest where Gaara was fighting the Oto unit, he knew it would take him several minutes to get there, but he didn't want to drop his gravity seals or use Hiraishin, that would give away the element of surprise. As the monument finally came into sight, he tensed. Smoke was coming from the market district that was directly facing the Mountain, and sounds of fighting and shouting were coming all too clearly. "Hope I am not too late," muttered the blonde shinobi as he moved a little faster towards the site of the battle. He finally landed on one of the rooftops and peered down to see what was going on. The first thing he saw was Konoha shinobis fighting what appeared to be twelve Oto shinobis, these were better than the general meaning that it either they were Jounins or cursed seal fighters, since they had Otogakure head bands on, he figured they were Jounins of Orochimaru's village. Konoha Chuunins were capable of handling a few Oto Jounins, he was quite sure, but when he turned his head, the sight before him made his blood boil.

The crumpled forms of Ino and Hinata lay against a tree and the only one that was still fighting the Uchiha was Sakura, but it was painfully obvious that he was simply toying with her. His contemptuous grin was all that Naruto needed to know that he was just playing with the Haruno, and will get rid of her as soon as his fun with the game ended. Fox started to move towards her when his heart skipped a beat, and he ran harder doubling his efforts to reach the Uchiha. Sasuke appeared right next to Sakura as she threw another punch that didn't meet its intended target. She suddenly froze as she realized the presence just to her left, and slowly turned towards it, her eyes wide in fear and anticipation. She was met with a painful fist to her temple and blissfully lost consciousness even before she stopped rolling.

The missing ninja from Konoha walked towards her, a new sword held in hand as he pointed it down, directly at his old teammate's heart. She could have been a valuable asset to him, but back when he left she was nothing more than an annoying voice next to him. Oh well, it seemed that even though she was stronger now, she had lost the love for him as he remembered it. She would be of no use to him, and killing off Tsunade's apprentice would only make it easier for him to get the things that he had come here for. With that thought he plunged the blade down, but sadly instead of meeting flesh his sword only met the soil. "What the…" muttered Sasuke before looking around until his eyes finally landed on an ANBU that was laying the unconscious form of Sakura next to Ino and Hinata. Sasuke growled at the new nuisance, since when had ANBU ever posed a threat to him? "Danzo needs to learn to control his lackeys better," fumed the Uchiha as he readied his blade to take apart the little blonde haired squirt.

"Man every time I fight you, there is a sword in your hand," said the masked ninja loudly. "You forget how to fight without one?" he said as his voice was practically floating in sarcasm.

"Do not over step your bounds ANBU, you know very well what will happen if you do," said Sasuke in a commanding voice, which seemed to instigate the blonde idiot to act even more brashly than before.

"Let's see what will happen to me now, hmm? Oh yeah, if I capture you, I will get rewarded. If I kill you I will get rewarded. If I get injured by you but still live, people will call me a brave hero. If I get killed by you, I will be too dead to worry about anything over much, so all in all for me it is a win-win situation," said Fox, he was enjoying this little banter with the flustered Uchiha too much to not have fun while he was at it.

"You will pay for that," growled the Uchiha before running at the blonde headed fool when suddenly his opponent vanished. The next thing that Sasuke felt was excruciating pain on the side of his face and he was flying backwards before landing more than twenty feet away. "What in the world?" he seethed as he got back to his feet. What was happening to him? How were his recent enemies always turning out to be totally beyond his level to beat, they seemed to stand on a place that completely outclassed him, how is that possible?

"Hey you know something?" came that annoying voice again. "For one who talks so big about himself, you really suck." The statement held merit, but to the Uchiha it was only a provocation, and he whirled around to see the blonde just standing there, hands in pockets, like he was taking a friendly stroll through a park. That was it, the Uchiha was going to go all out, it doesn't matter if he destroyed half of the village with it, but that blonde dies now! He slowly raised his arm up, concentrating all of his chakra on connecting with the clouds above before throwing in a few lightning bolts of his own towards the heavens.

"Finally getting serious are we?" muttered Fox as he readied a fuuinjutsu technique, just for attacks such as these. Soon enough, the lightning started to take the form of a classic Japanese dragon as it descended from above.

"KIRIN!" shouted Sasuke as he brought his hands down as fast as possible, and the spectral dragon formed by lightning followed. Naruto quickly ran his hands in seals before holding his hand up as the massive lightning dragon met his open palm dead on. "Fool," thought the Uchiha as he saw the masked shinobi trying to face Kirin dead on, but at a closer look he stopped. Kirin wasn't affecting him; no it was getting sucked up by his hand! What the hell? Finally Sasuke noticed the seal-like symbols that were glowing, spreading outward from his hand like a halo made of symbols. As the last of the lightning disappeared, Fox closed his fist; the seal receded back before he opened his palm once more. There was not a scratch on it.

"Heh, that all you got?" asked Fox as he grinned behind his mask. He was feeling a little wobbly himself, because he had used up almost a third of his whole chakra on that jutsu, he would have to play safe from now on. Sasuke could barely speak; he was so flabbergasted by the Shinobi's abilities that he didn't trust his own voice. He had used up nearly three quarters of his chakra on that massive lightning attack, soon he would run out. He had severely underestimated his opponent this time but this was ridiculous, no one in Konohagakure was this strong, or this talented with seals other than Jiraiya, and that toad sage was currently fighting Orochimaru, so who is this guy?

"Who are you?" asked the Sharingan bearer weakly.

"What you forgot already?" asked Fox, disappointed, he was actually pouting behind the mask.

"There is no way that we have met before," commented Sasuke confidently, he hadn't met a single ninja yet that could make him look this bad, unless… "YOU! It is you isn't it that same guy that fought me when they attacked the base?" growled the Uchiha as he pointed towards the unconscious kunoichis, now it was anger that was fueling his urge to fight, no to decimate this blonde once and for all. Fox took a few steps back as he put his hand on the trunk of the tree to support him. As he looked down, he suddenly realized that half of Sakura's face was covered with blood. _Blood? Where did all that blood come from?_ Naruto quickly knelt down next to her and turned her head slightly to see a light but long scratch on her temple where Sasuke had punched her.

"You went too far this time Sasuke," said Fox in a low growl as he turned his head looking at the Uchiha with hatred written on his crystal blue eyes. There was something familiar about the way he said that, but Sasuke was too lost in his rage to realize that as he charged up his sword with lightning with as much chakra as he could pump into that attack. Yet, to his humiliation, the infuriating blonde wasn't even paying attention to him anymore; he was blissfully attending to that weak Kunoichi's wound!

Ino slowly opened her eyes and was immediately hit with extreme pain from the right side of her chest, just below her shoulder blasé and above her breast. She tenderly held a hand to it as she tried to sit up, thankfully she was alright except for the pain where Sasuke had hit her, and knocked her out. The Yamanaka noted a small movement to her left and turned to see the surprising vision of the ANBU Fox cradling Sakura's head on his lap. The action was so tender and endearing that she could have sworn he was in love with the girl, except he was actually inspecting the wound on the side of her forehead closely. It was bleeding profusely, and looked really bad. Sakura needed medical assistance immediately. She looked back forward and nearly fainted again in fright. There stood a very pissed off Sasuke, with a sword blazing with lightning in his hand as he stared at Fox with pure hatred in his eyes. "H-hey," choked out Ino as she moved forward towards Sakura's body.

"Ino-san, do you by any chance happen to know medical ninjutsu?" he asked, his voice completely emotionless but not cold either.

"Yeah, I am actually Sakura's apprentice," she said with a nod as she took her friend's hand in her own lap before applying the healing green chakra to the shallow scratch on her forehead. "Umm, why don't you call for help? You know he is standing right there looking just about ready to kill you," whispered the Yamanaka as she threw a fearful look at the still staring Uchiha before turning back to her masked comrade.

"Oh him?" this time his voice was cold, not it was dark. "He went too far this time," said the ANBU as he got to his feet. There was something in his voice that said he was not afraid of the Uchiha in the least; no it was more like Sasuke was just a major thorn on his side. "Either he is mad or he is the strongest ANBU captain in all of Konoha," thought the blonde Kunoichi as she continued to pay attention to healing Sakura to the best of her abilities.

"Sasuke you know there is one thing that I cannot and never will tolerate yet you…you insist on always doing the exact thing that I hate," stated Fox as he took one step after another until he was only a few inched from the seething raven haired ninja.

"Huh?" said Sasuke cockily. "And what's that?"

"Trying to hurt those that are precious to me," growled the blonde making Sasuke take an involuntary step back. Even Ino's head snapped up as she looked at the blonde ANBU in a new light. She had never known anyone being this brave in the face of inevitable danger, and yet here he was facing down one of the most feared missing Nins from Konoha and not backing down at all.

"Maybe there is something special about him after all," thought the blonde haired teen as she finally closed Sakura's wound, stopping the blood flow.

"No, it can't be you!" he roared as he swung his sword towards the ANBU in a wide arc, but Fox stopped it, as he grasped the blade with his bare hand and completely stopped the movement of the sword!

"Give up Sasuke, you already lost," said the masked shinobi smirking, as he pulled the sword out of the Uchiha's hand before delivering a powerful kick to his chest, sending him sprawling several feet away.

"No way," breathed Ino as she just saw Sasuke getting his behind handed to him by the ANBU. The masked ninja lifted his mask a little to the side before biting his thumb.

"Summoning Technique!" he said as he slammed his head on the ground, and there was a large puff of smoke. As the smoke dissipated, there was a massive frog, sitting there blinking rapidly.

"What the…no way, is that really you?" he asked as he stared at the blonde ANBU curiously. The masked ninja took a deep sigh but nodded.

"Long story Gamakichi but yea it's me. Listen we are in the middle of a war and I got three injured shinobis that you need to take to the hospital, ASAP, okay?" said Fox in a serious voice, and much to his surprise got a positive answer in response.

"Ya got it boss, where are they?" asked the summon and Naruto pointed towards Ino, Sakura, and Hinata who were still by the tree.

"WHAAAAA!" screeched Ino suddenly making Naruto whirl around expecting to see an attack, but all he saw was the 'freaking out' face of Ino Yamanaka.

"What's wrong?" he asked sharply as he looked around before returning his eyes to Ino.

"Th-th-that frog can speak!" she sputtered as she looked from Gamakichi back to Fox and then back to the biggest frog she had seen in her life.

"For the record lady, I am a toad," said Gamakichi nonchalantly.

"KYAAA, it spoke to me!" Ino screeched again making Fox hold his hands to his ears before his eardrums exploded.

"First of all Ino, that is a summon animal, and most summons can communicate with their summoners in one way or another, so relax. And Gamakichi here is a friend all his going to do is carry you three safely to the hospital really fast, nothing to worry about just get on his back and leave," said Fox calmly while Gamakichi gave a vigorous nod, agreeing with Fox wholeheartedly. It seemed to calm the Yamanaka heiress down a little bit but she still kept a wary eye on the massive toad.

"Fine I will go but of it eats me I am going to kill you," huffed Ino, making the blonde chuckle at the paradox in her sentence, but moved to help her lift Sakura and Hinata on Gamakichi's back. Ino also slowly got up on the summon's back as well and he took off, taking huge hops and moving directly for the hospital.

"Phew, that was troublesome," muttered the ANBU as he picked up the unconscious form of Sasuke before he took off running towards the main battlefield, where the Sannins were present.

**You know, someone suggested a NaruxSakuxIno Fanfic, which I kinda like. So what do you guys think?**


	8. The Sunagakure Delegation Part 4

**The Sunagakure Delegation (Part 4)**

Sakura was jumping from tree to tree following Shizune; the pink haired medic was the one who had suggested that the trio join the main battle with the Sannins since the village defense was now being assisted by the Kazekage and his siblings. Sakura was sure that the village's protection was in the hands of a much stronger person. Behind her Ino looked a little tired but she had insisted that she accompany Shizune and her best friend because she also considered Tsunade a teacher who had become a trusted companion with her and Sakura. If anyone were to ever ask what relationship Sakura, Ino, Shizune, and Tsunade shared, there would be no doubt that their answers would be that of siblings. "Hey Sakura, are you sure you are going in the right direction?" called Ino bringing the other medic out of her thoughts.

"Yes, why do you ask?" asked Sakura in a slightly miffed voice.

"Because we have been traveling for a quarter of an hour now and still there is no sight of the battlefield, don't you think they will be fighting closer to the village wall than that?" Ino replied Sakura's question with a question of her own.

"Will you two stop squabbling already, see we are already at the battlefield," said Shizune raising her voice a little bit so the girls heard her but not too much or she risked revealing any nearby foes to their presence.

"Oh," breathed Sakura as she came to a dead stop and just watched with her mouth a little open. She had never seen shinobis fighting like this, so openly and so many going against just as many opposing ninjas. This was the first time that Sakura was witnessing a full-scale war and she was just stumped at the amount of bloodshed, fighting, and violence that was going on in just one place. Shizune noticed that Ino was having the same reactions as Sakura while she stood behind her friend and witnessed a war for the first time in her life.

"Getting to Tsunade-sama will be difficult," mumbled Shizune, but it did not go unheard by the two other kunoichis.

"Yea, she is in the middle of the field where as we are at the edge, getting to her would mean that we have to cross a field full of enemy shinobis, so how the hell are we going to get there?" asked Ino as she had already deduced what Shizune had meant by her previous comment.

"Uhh…uhh…" stuttered Shizune but could not come up with a solid answer so she just shrugged uncertainly.

"I believe a camouflage jutsu would work," said a voice behind them, but Ino did not have to turn to know who it was.

"Fox!" said Sakura, a little startled at the sudden and completely silent approach of the ANBU.

"Yes, is there something you needed to tell me?" he asked in an emotionless voice as he continued to stare at her making her a little self conscious.

"Yes, I wanted to thank you for saving my, Ino's, and Hinata's life back there. If you had not showed up we would probably be dead right now," replied Sakura as a faint blush rose to her cheeks, thank god it was dark.

"Man, he has been ANBU for only a day and already he would be considered a hero once word got out that he was the one that defended the village against Sasuke and his goons," thought Ino, she was getting more and more intrigued by this mysterious ninja, and she was determined to find out exactly who he was and how in the world did he become so strong? It was understandable for Sasuke, not only was he extremely talented, he also had the Sharingan, and was training constantly with a Sannin for four years continuously. But no Konoha ninja had the same amount of training or a famed teacher like Orochimaru other than Sakura and herself, and they would not be able to hold a candle to this blonde ANBU if he had been able to take out the Uchiha without so much as getting a single cut on him.

"You are welcome, now as I was saying a camouflage jutsu is the best way to get to the Sannins undetected by the enemies."

"Camouflage jutsu?" asked Sakura in a confused voice. She had served in ANBU for a full year yet she had no idea such kinds of jutsus existed.

"Sakura, a camouflage jutsu does exactly what it is named for. It hides the user from prying eyes and only highly trained shinobis and sensor type ninjas would be able to tell if someone is under a camouflage jutsu or not," explained Ino much to the surprise of Sakura and Shizune.

"How did you know about these?" asked the pink haired medic a little skeptically.

"Uh hello, I was Shikamaru's teammate remember? And their bloodline jutsus was made for stealth attacks, so when we did team trainings, Asuma sensei taught us a lot about how to hide from enemy ninjas and stuff like that. So I know a few things about stealth," replied Ino a little airily but nobody was paying any attention to her, now Ino's two companions were staring at Fox, waiting for him to perform a camouflage technique. The mask wearing ninja made a single seal with his left hand and a heavy fog rolled over the area, completely coating the entire battlefield in a matter of seconds.

"Hey, I know this jutsu," chirped Sakura suddenly as she remembered her first mission outside Konoha. "This was one of Zabuza's most favored techniques because he could hunt without using his eyes."

"Yes you are right; this technique was developed in Mist. And anyone with even the slightest water affinity in their chakra system can easily use this jutsu, though it does take a lot of chakra if you are using a large area like this battle field," said Fox, he was openly complimenting the medic, much to Sakura's unnatural pleasure and Ino's chagrin. Shizune just smiled to herself, it seemed Naruto had not changed as much as she thought when she first laid eyes on him after four years. "And you are also correct," said Fox now turning his head to look at the blonde medic, who was now blushing just as much as her friend. "Though I am a little surprised that they do not teach these in ANBU, after all stealth is one of their key skill set, they are black ops for a reason."

"I know Na…Fox, that is why Tsunade-sama is trying to find out a way to improve the ANBU unit and the training that the shinobis are given once they enter the black ops. Hopefully the bill she has proposed will pass and the new training regime will be put into action," said the oldest of the tree medics. Fox did not miss the slip up, and his identity would have been blown if she had not controlled herself. He nodded stiffly, pulled a kunai with each hand before gesturing them to follow as he leaped off the tree branch where they were all perched on and right into the throng of fighting shinobis. A second later they heard six thuds before a hand shout out of the mist and beckoned them to jump. When they did, Sakura nearly cursed and Ino just stared openmouthed. Six Oto Shinobis lay dead, and Shizune had to wonder just how strong ha Naruto become to drop six Nins in no more than a second?

"Alright, let's move," said Fox in a low voice and the three medics started to follow the blonde ANBU through the enemy ranks of Oto. They reached the Sannins soon enough and it seemed that the Hokage and Orochimaru were talking about some kind of bargain.

"What is going on shisou?" asked Sakura as she turned to look at the smug face of the snake Sannin. She, Shizune and Ino had easily climbed up on Katsuyu, so now they could see all too clearly what the expressions were on the Sannins' faces. By the looks of it the bargain was not going in favor of Tsunade and Jiraiya.

"He has taken a hostage," said Tsunade with a sigh as she indicated towards the pale man with a hand.

"A hostage?" asked Ino in a concerned voice. "Who?"

"I don't know but he says that if we don't take back our own forces back to the village, he will kill her," replied the blonde Kage.

"One hostage, Tsunade-sama don't you think that the good of the many outweigh the needs of the few in this situation?" asked Shizune nervously, though she knew just how much her mentor cared for the village, and its inhabitants.

"Yes, but then what? What will happen to the hostage he has after that?" asked Tsunade in a whisper.

"Can you at least tell us who this hostage is?" asked Jiraiya from where he was standing atop Gamabunta's head.

"Why I believe you know her quite well," said Orochimaru as he seemed to pick up something that was lying by his feet. It quickly became apparent as he held the heavily bruised and unconscious form of Anko Mitarashi. He was easily holding her up for the Sannins to see by the back of her neck, and by the wounds that he had inflicted on her; it was quite obvious to the medics that if she was not treated quickly, the interrogator would die.

"Damn!" cursed Ino under her breath, since she had become an interrogator, she was signed to follow Anko as her trainer in the department. At first the Yamanaka was thoroughly disgusted and a little afraid of the way that the Snake summoner behaved with her prisoners. But as she came to know the woman better and better she realized just how hard her life had become after she came back to Konoha escaping the Snake Sannin's grasp. The people of the village viewed her as nothing more than an accomplice of the traitor while some just outright thought that she was his personal plaything. It did not help the fact that the overly revealing way she dressed only made the people's negative beliefs stronger. The only people she could think of who actually knew Anko was Kurenai, her own sensei Asuma, Kakashi, Gai, Tenzo, head of the ANBU department under the Hokage, her father Inoichi, Ibiki head of the interrogation division, her shisou Tsunade-sama, and surprisingly her old academy instructor Iruka. Heck by Anko's own words they had even gone on dates together, which she found a little hard to believe considering the polar opposite personalities of the two people.

"So what do you intend to do Tsunade-sama," asked Shizune, she knew that no matter what her mentor did, she would always support her decision and stand by her side. Orochimaru chuckled coldly as he let the body of Anko drop behind him with an audible thud, even over the din of the battlefield.

"I suppose the only way I can save her life is by recalling all our shinobis back to Konoha," said the blonde Sannin as she rubbed her temples. She yet had to know what happened back in the village as she had heard from Orochimaru that Sasuke intended to infiltrate the village for some personal purposes, but she trusted that the Kazekage was more than up to the job of defending it against someone such as Sasuke.

"There is another way," came the calm, and in this case, reassuring voice of a masked shinobi as he landed deftly next to Jiraiya atop Gamabunta. Tsunade turned to see the masked ninja staring at her intently, and also noticed the mischievous twinkle in his eyes that he usually got when he had a prank planned in his head.

"And what other way is that?" asked the Godaime Hokage.

"I propose a trade," replied the blonde calmly, but he was grinning like a mad man behind his mask, oh this was going to be fun! He initially got the idea after he captured the Uchiha and put a seal of unconsciousness on him, and actually thought that he could pull it off.

"What could you, a simple ANBU, possibly possess that would make me trade my leverage for?" asked the black-haired Sannin, his voice dripping with disdain as he laid his eyes for the first time to the tall ANBU standing next to his white haired teammate Jiraiya.

"How does he sound?" said the blonde as he quickly pulled out a rather large scroll before laying it flat on the Toad Boss's head. Performing a quick hand seal, there was a puff of smoke. Jiraiya gave a hearty laugh when he saw who it was that Fox had captured. Naruto finally grabbed Sasuke and held it for Orochimaru to see; who seemed to have become paler, if that was at all possible.

"So what do you say?" asked Fox again.

"I agree to this trade," said the Sannin instantly, how in the world did an ANBU capture Sasuke, for that matter he didn't think anyone in Konoha was actually strong enough to beat Sasuke other than the Sannins. Fox nodded and placed two fingers on his limp adversary's forehead. After a faint glow as a seal appeared there, Sasuke's eyes snapped open as the masked ninja set him down upon his feet. Without any indication or confirmation the raven haired boy jumped from the toad's head and landed on Manda's, much to the annoyance of the Hokage and her friend, Jiraiya.

"Now give back Anko," said the masked ninja only to hear the cold cackle of the black haired Sannin.

"Dear boy, do you really think…" Orochimaru started to say, only to be interrupted as Sasuke picked up the purple haired Kunoichi and started to move towards Gamabunta. "Sasuke what are you doing?" Sasuke turned his expressionless face at him before giving a very un-Sasuke like grin, and jumped towards the massive toad. Orochimaru instantly threw two kunais at the figure in midair, where the blades embedded themselves on his back, but with a puff of smoke the figure vanished. "Shadow clone, I should have known!" growled Orochimaru to himself. The momentum and inertia of Anko made her reach all the way to the toad boss's head where Fox caught her carefully before setting her down gently on her back. Instantly Shizune was by her side giving medical help to the fallen Kunoichi.

"For someone who has achieved the rank of Sannin, you are very stupid," remarked Fox, and the snake Sannin bristled. Jiraiya and Tsunade on the other hand, laughed outright, while Shizune, Sakura, and Ino held their mouths. The brazen behavior of this ANBU was quite hilarious, given the setting and mood of the place.

"YOU DARE TO MOCK ME!" roared the man standing to his full height on the Snake Boss's head.

"No," said the masked ANBU calmly. "I am just stating what I am seeing." He knew he was only getting the man angrier at him but that was his intention, usually people started making mistakes when anger overruled their judgments, something he had learned the hard way and had to work hard to get control over his base emotions, impatience, and somewhat short tempered head. Jiraiya put a hand on Fox's shoulder, as he saw his old teammate's face redden with rage, before leaning in towards his ears.

"Enough gaki," whispered the Toad Sage, though the mirth that was in his voice was clearly readable. "Or you are going to make him blow up in his own anger."

"Whatever you say Ero-Sannin," he whispered right back. Yet, he had his eyes trained on the Sannin who seemed to be pulling something out of his mouth. Soon it was obvious as he now held a three and a half foot long sword in a hand, his narrow eyes glinting dangerously as he glared at the ANBU with unmasked hatred. Fox whistled softly as he saw the Kusanagi in Orochimaru's hands admiringly, another sentient sword that unfortunately had fallen into the wrong hands.

"You will die today boy," spat the Otokage as he raised his blade pointing it towards the tall ANBU, who on the other hand was grinning dangerously behind his mask. He pulled another scroll out and flipped it in the air where it unfurled and with a puff of smoke a massive sword fell out, landing on the waiting hands of the ANBU, who almost lazily lifted it up before resting it across his shoulders.

"Bring it snake breath," he muttered as he leaped off the toad's head at the same time Orochimaru did. Kubiriki Bocho met Kusanagi in a shower of sparks before both the shinobis flipped away from each other and landed in the battlefield. Other ninjas scrambled in haste to get away from the dangerous and powerful Otokage, they had no intention of facing his wrath when there were other Sannins to deal with him as needed. Soon, the two combatants had a perfect circle formed around them as they sized up their opponents with a critical eye. Fox noted from his peripheral vision as Tsunade, Jiraiya, Sakura, and Ino landed behind him, while the summons waded among the throng of shinobis to watch the fight unfold.

"Jiraiya," rumbled Gamabunta as he looked at the blonde fighting his primary summoner's old teammate. "Is that who I think it is?"

"Yeah pops," said Gamakichi as he flew out of nowhere and landed on top of Gamabunta's head.

"Hmmm," thought the Toad boss with a small frown as he puffed some more on his tobacco.

"What are you talking about Bunta?" asked Katsuyu as she slithered he way closer to the cigar smoking toad boss. Instead of replying out loud, he just shook his head letting the snail know that now was not the time to ask such questions, as it was the toad boss already feared that this time the blonde had bargained more than he could chew.

It quickly became evident to Fox that if Sasuke was an above average swordsman, Orochimaru was brilliant. He handled Kusanagi with more grace, power, and skill that Sasuke had yet to possess, and was proving himself to be a formidable opponent, quite a feat since he was, for all sense and purposes, fighting a Swordsman of the Mist. One trained by none other than Kisame himself, using the blade that was wielded by the dreaded Demon of the Mist. Yes, to say Orochimaru was good at wielding a sword would be the understatement of the century. Still Fox found that he could more than match his opponent in skill and also found himself enjoying the little 'match' he was having with the Sannin. It was definitely lot better than fighting an amateur like Sasuke, who only strove to cut rather than accepting the more subtle and finer qualities of using a blade.

Once again the pink haired medic found herself mesmerized by the deadly dance that the blonde ANBU was playing with the Snake Sannin. But this time, it just wasn't herself. Tsunade and Jiraiya were definitely trying to figure out where the brat stood since he was handling the massive cleaver like it weighed no more than a twig, and was quite good at using it. Ino and Shizune, it seemed, forgot how to breathe as they watched the game of life and death that the masked shinobi was playing with one of the most dangerous criminals in all the elemental nations. "Uh shouldn't you guys be helping him?" asked the Yamanaka heiress as she couldn't bear to watch the talented ANBU give up his life fighting someone who was obviously beyond his league when there were others who were more than competent in taking on a Sannin.

"We can't, they are using weapons that we have no training in," said the white haired Sannin as he shook his head slowly.

"But sooner or later he is going to lose," hissed the blonde Hokage in his old teammate's ear, making him look at her a little oddly.

"What makes you so sure?" he whispered back. To that the Godaime had no answer. She just settled for giving a glare to the white haired Sannin before turning back to look at the two fighters. Still it was amazing to watch the ANBU hold his own using the massive sword against the lightning quick attack sequences that his foe was using with the much lighter blade.

"Time to turn it up a notch," thought Fox with a grin before dropping his gravity seal. Orochimaru's eyes went wider as suddenly his opponent seemed to disappear in thin air.

"MOVE BACK!" the ANBU yelled as he had appeared above his opponent and was now dropping on top of him, sword pointed downwards. Shinobis ran away from the combatants, it was quite understandable if wide ranged area attacks were being used, it could potentially harm everyone standing in its radius. Tsunade grabbed Ino while Jiraiya had Sakura before both the Sannins jumped away from the fighters. The Snake Sannin looked up before diving to the side, he did not like the fact that a massive sword was coming at him from above. What he disliked more, though, was the fact that like a mini-tornado, a column of wind was spinning around the length of the blade of Kubiriki Bocho.

"Damn," was all he said before his opponent landed where he had been seconds ago and drove his sword deep into the ground. Next thing that Orochimaru felt could only be described as an earthquake because all the compressed wind got released into the ground spiked outward with massive force, destroying everything within a twenty meter radius. Fox stood on a perfectly circular pillar as everything around him was nothing more than a massive twelve meters deep crater. Many jaws had hit the floor, and even more pairs of eyes were staring at the aftermath of the attack with awe.

"W-what happened?" asked Sakura, not really understanding how a simple sword strike could be so devastating.

"He was using compressed wind around his sword to make the area of attack larger," replied Jiraiya, as if that should explain everything but all Sakura did was blink a few times before turning towards Tsunade, Ino was also giving her the same look. The Godaime sighed as she shook her head before explaining more elaborately.

"You realize how we make mini earthquakes with our extremely strong punches right?" She saw the medics nod before continuing. "Well what Fox did has the same basic principle. Using compressed wind chakra around his blade made his strike very powerful, and when he released all that force under the ground, it had to come out somewhere, so it went outwards destroying the layers of earth above it, thus forming a crater and destroying everything it came into contact with."

"Oh," said Sakura before realizing what her teacher was indicating. "Then the force behind the attack must have been tremendously strong."

"Yes, well elemental techniques have their advantages," said Jiraiya as he smirked at seeing just how much Naruto's chakra control has improved.

"Yo," came a voice from behind the medics making Ino and Sakura jump while Tsunade just gave them a passing glance before turning back to see Fox looking around in the crater trying to locate his foe.

"Kakashi-sensei, you need to stop doing that!" exclaimed Sakura as she let go of her chest before indicating to the Fox masked ANBU. "Do you know who he is?"

"I have to say that I do not," replied Kakashi.

"What happened to the Oto unit Hatake?" cracked the white haired Sannin's deep voice into the Jounin's thoughts.

"They retreated," said the green spandex wearing. "Our flames of youth were too much for them to handle," Gai then shouted before giving the 'nice guy' pose.

"And what about Kabuto?" asked Tsunade in a serious voice.

"He escaped," replied Kakashi in a disappointed voice.

"So this is the only unit left?" asked a new voice making all of the turn around to see Fox.

"What…when did you…" Ino turned back to see Fox was still looking at the crater trying to locate the elusive Snake Sannin.

"Are you telling me that he was a clone this whole time?" asked Jiraiya in a completely stunned voice.

"Oh yeah, sorry about that I had to make sure that he remained with me," said Fox and for the first time everybody seemed to notice the unconscious figure hanging over his shoulder. A silence descended on the group as no one was sure what to say.

"At least we were able to catch one of Orochimaru's accomplices," said the Godaime Hokage at last. "Now we will be able to extract more information about the traitor and what he has been up to."

"I don't think that will happen," said Fox, his voice was serious meaning he was all about business right now.

"And why is that?" demanded the Toad Sage in a genuinely curious voice.

"I checked his camp out in the forest yesterday, he has enough reinforcements to call all of his units back with fresh troops, do you think we can handle that right now as we stand?" asked the ANBU, it was obvious that Konoha was not ready to take any more of this.

"So you intend to use him as…a bargain to make Orochimaru leave?" Jiraiya knew the blonde well enough to know what he intended to do.

"We…we can't do that!" exclaimed Sakura suddenly, she needed to know what happened to Team Seven, what happened to 'him' that day. Tsunade also turned to look at her student with anger written clearly across her features.

"What do you mean we cannot do that?" shouted the Hokage in anger. She could not believe that Sakura still had her childhood crush for the traitor. The pink haired medic suddenly felt like the same vulnerable girl she used to feel like four years ago. And she absolutely hated that helpless and weak feeling. She looked around and saw all the people looking at her wither with disappointment or pity, even Ino averted her eyes when their eyes met. And then her eyes landed on the masked ninja's eyes and she was surprised to see…understanding? His eyes looked warm, glowing in the dark like two magical gems and showed that he understood what she felt but how could he? Why did he?

"Look, I understand how you must feel, I really do. But you have to understand, is it really worth it to sacrifice all your friends' safety by perusing the benefit of one? Maybe keeping Sasuke Uchiha in Konoha will be a positive influence on him, but by making that choice how many people's lives are you putting at danger right now? And do you really think that Orochimaru will just sit back when he realizes that we have captured his prized student, his next vessel? He will turn this village upside down; massacre every single person in this village if he has to for Sasuke and you know it. So think again, is it really worth it?" Fox spoke, but this time his voice was different, it was neither cold nor emotionless like before. No, his voice was warm, deep, and wonderfully soothing.

"Yes but…I understand," Sakura knew that for the sake of the village it would be the right choice to let Sasuke go, but she still needed to know the big mystery that revolved around the sudden disappearance of the two male members of Team Seven, especially Naruto about whom nobody really knew what had happened. Her hands clenched into fists as her memory wandered back to the loud mouthed knucklehead, how he never got tired of proclaiming his undying love for her in ridiculous and some cases extremely stupid ways, and always managed to cheer her up even when she felt really down. In the last four years she had missed his sunny and bright attitude, maybe even more than she had missed…probably not but he was starting to make a really special spot in her heart for himself before his abrupt disappearance.  
>"Damn" said Fox suddenly as he turned to see his clone disappearing in a puff of smoke. It seems some of Orochimaru's allied had appeared on the field. He threw Sasuke's body to Jiraiya before disappearing, as he rushed off into the crater.<p>

"What the hell is he doing?" muttered the Toad Sage as he watched three members Team Taka pulling the Otokage out of the rubble. Suigetsu looked at Kubiriki Bocho hungrily after it had fallen off the clone's hands. With shaking hands he reached out for the blade when it suddenly disappeared from his sight.

"You should not take things that do not belong to you," said a voice that instinctively made him jump back a few feet.

"Hmph, so is it really you or just another clone because you cannot man up enough to face me yourself?" asked the Mist assassin, trying to sound as tough as possible because he knew very well that a few hours ago the blonde had beaten him without even breaking a sweat for the second time in his life.

"Care to find out?' said Fox, his voice dark as he took a step forward. Suigetsu gulped and took a step back; he had no intention to get beaten by the Shinobi a second time in the same night, not to mention that he was really sore and injured by their previous encounter. Even if he stood a small chance before, he stood no chance against that monster now. The masked shinobi chuckled before he stopped and held out a hand. "I am not here to fight anyway. When he wakes up tell Orochimaru that we have a final bargain with him, and this one is not a fluke. We will be right there," Fox pointed to the small hill where Konoha's soldiers were still waiting for the Oto shinobis to attack. The Sannins were also there, easily detectable because of their massive summons. Manda, though had disappeared because Orochimaru was knocked unconscious, though Suigetsu had no idea who had done that, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it was none other than the Shinobi standing in front of him. But if he really started believing that, he would have already been sprinting out of this village for his dear life.

"Why did you go back there?" asked Tsunade as soon as Fox returned.

"To let them know that we have something he wants and to get this back," replied the blonde as he took Kubiriki Bocho off his shoulder and held it out to her.

"Is that what I think it is?" asked Jiraiya as he looked at one of the Mist Assassins' most prized possession.

"If you are thinking that this is Zabuza's sword then you are right."

"Kubiriki Bocho, the cleaver, how in the world did you get your hands on something like that?" asked the Toad Sage but when no answer was forthcoming he let it drop. Fox was steadily following the movements of a certain medic as she had moved a little away from the rest of them and was sitting on the ground with a forlorn look on her face. He sighed internally before walking towards Sakura and sitting next to her.

"Hey," said Fox making Sakura jerk her head towards him, startled.

"Oh…" she started but trailed off as she looked again into his eyes and was lost in the oceanic deep blue of his eyes. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," said Fox as the corners of his eyes creased, meaning he was smiling under the mask.

"Do you know how it feels…how I feel right now?" she asked before even considering what type of question was coming out of her mouth.

"I can only guess but I know it is one of the hardest decisions that you probably had to take in your life and you made the one that is for the greater good, which makes you a rather selfless kunoichi if you ask me," commented the blonde making Sakura blush a little at the compliment.

"And how can you say that? You don't even know me…you don't know how selfish I was…I am," said the medic, anguish and self hatred evident in her voice. Fox was appalled at her behavior, this not the Sakura he remembered.

"What makes you say that?" he asked in a concerned tone, he did not know what had happened to her but he intended to find out, he still could not bear her pain it seems. He smiled at the irony, the person he considered the reason for his messed up life was also the person he loved

"D-do you know what happened to Team Seven?" she asked and for the first time hoped that he did, it was the first time that she was trusting a complete stranger with her vulnerable side and she did not even know why but it felt so right.

"Mostly bits and pieces, like Sasuke Uchiha's defection for his ridiculous desire for power. Apparently he did not realize that staying in Konoha would have probably made him stronger than just following a single ninja. Naruto Uzumaki's sudden disappearance along with him, though people actually think that he was killed by the Uchiha because he had tried to stop him from leaving, other than that not much really," the ANBU stopped as he looked again at the medic to see her saddened eyes looking at him.

"You know, Naruto was probably the most ridiculous, stupid, and headstrong boy I had ever met but he was also the only person who had the ability to make me laugh no matter what the situation was. In the last four years that I have worked so hard to become strong my only reason was to find out what had truly happened to him, I never really realized it but he was becoming one of my best friends and just how much he meant to me until he disappeared. People always think that I still love Sasuke-kun but the only reason I always chase after him is to know what had happened that day at the valley. Did Naruto also leave the village with him, did he follow the person he considered his brother…was he killed by…by…" Sakura's shoulder shook a little as a lone tear rolled down her cheek.

The only thing that was going through the masked ninja's head was "WHAT THE HELL?"

"So what do you…I mean did you love Naruto Uzumaki?" he dared to ask though he expected to hear a fiery 'no' coming from the pink haired Kunoichi, but the only response he got was a shrug.

"I don't know, but he is the person that I miss in my life the most. If that is love then yes I love him, I just wished that I realized how special he was before…before he left me," the medic shook her head as more tears rolled down her eyes. "I miss him so much," she whispered but froze as two strong arms suddenly encircled her body and held her close. "F-Fox?" she squeaked, it was so sudden and surprising that she did not know what to do so she did the only thing she could. She cried all her frustration, fear, and anxiety away as he held her, making her believe that she was not alone. Ino watched the actions of the duo curiously and smirked a little when the ANBU hugged her friend but mostly kept her whirling thoughts to herself.

Sakura felt the arms holding her snap away as the warm body against her suddenly jumped up. She looked up to see the masked shinobi looking towards the other side of the battlefield before turning his head back towards her and extending his arm to help her up. She took it and got to her feet before letting it go quickly. What the ANBU had seen of her a few moments ago was a weakness, it will not happen again. Fox and Sakura moved back to stand with the Sannins as they saw a small contingent of the opposing army detach itself from the rest and made way towards them.

"Well I seriously hope you did not piss him off too much gaki," muttered Jiraiya as he moved next to Fox with Sasuke's body hanging from his shoulder.

"Yeah me too," thought the masked ANBU as he saw Orochimaru, and he positively looked more pissed than Fox had ever seen him before. The blonde ANBU gulped as they landed a few feet away from their group and the amount of killing intent that Orochimaru was radiating towards the masked boy was so dense that Sakura and Ino backed off from him instinctively.

"You give me back my apprentice right now!" demanded the Snake Sannin as he locked his gaze with the white haired Sannin, who only raised an eyebrow at his anger.

"In one condition," said Fox, surprised that his voice was as steady and cold as it had come out.

"You are in no position to make deals," snarled the Snake summoner, his eyes narrowed. He was not going to be fooled by this ANBU no name; he was a Sannin after all.

"Think again Orochimaru," said the Godaime Hokage as Fox was holding a kunai to the unconscious Uchiha's neck.

"You make on wrong move and he is dead."

"What do you want?" asked the Snake Sannin through gritted teeth.

"Leave Konoha," Tsunade made it as simple as possible, all she wanted was for Orochimaru to leave her village.

"Do you think that I will let this chance to…" Orochimaru stopped speaking as another figure jumped onto Manda.

"Damn," muttered Fox as he saw a severely injured, but very much alive Kabuto Yakushi speaking to the Otokage. The glasses wearing shinobi spoke to his master fast with quick hand gestures. Orochimaru, it seemed, had found something interesting as a grin stretched across his lips. He nodded to his white-haired apprentice, gave a few orders to Team Taka as the leapt off Manda and sped off towards the Oto army, before turning back towards the opposing Sannins.

"Kukuku, Tsunade it seems that a rather sudden turn of events leave me no choice but to accept your proposal," said the Otokage with the sickening grin still on his face. "Give me back my apprentice." Fox immediately made a clone that took Sasuke's body from Jiraiya and delivered it to the waiting arms of Kabuto before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

"Well that was lot less eventful than I expected," muttered Ino only to get shot with three glares and a small chuckle from a certain ANBU.

**Alright, first I would like to inform readers that Hinata is not going to be a part of Naruto's love interest, she is taken. Please don't forget to review or P.M. me if you want to discuss the story in more details.**

**Tanneal **


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